X CEO Linda Yaccarino Resigns After 2 Years Leading Elon Musk’s Platform

X CEO Linda Yaccarino on Wednesday announced she is stepping down after leading the platform owned by Elon Musk for a little more than two years.

“I’m immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App,” Yaccarino posted on X. “I’m incredibly proud of the X team – the historic business turn around we have accomplished together has been nothing short of remarkable.”

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Her exit comes a day after Grok, X’s artificial intelligence model, went haywire and started posting antisemitic and pro-Hitler responses. A number of X users responded to her post on Wednesday, asking if the Grok incident played a role in her leaving the company.

Yaccarino was named the chief executive of X in June 2023, less than a year after Musk bought the platform formerly known as Twitter. She joined X after leaving NBCUniversal, where she was the chairman of global advertising and partnerships, and her move to Musk’s platform shocked many in the industry.

Yaccarino, soon after joining the company, said she was committed to what Musk called his “Freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” approach, where the platform was less focused on censoring and kicking off users than under its previous leadership.

“X is enabling an information independence that’s uncomfortable for some people,” Yaccarino said in 2023. “We’re a platform that allows people to make their own decisions.”

She said that perspective put X at the “unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street” and would make it more appealing to advertisers. After a rocky few years, that bet appeared to pay off, with advertisers like Disney and Apple returning to the platform following controversial comments from Musk. Trimming costs and headcount also helped X bounce back to a $44 billion valuation, the same price Musk paid for it, before it was acquired by Musk’s AI platform in March.

Critics, meanwhile, have said X has become more toxic than ever under its more relaxed approach to censorship. Many users ditched X after the 2024 election and headed to Bluesky, which some left-leaning users dubbed “Blue Heaven,” in protest of Musk and his support for President Trump.

“Thank you for your contributions,” Musk posted in response to Yaccarino, about 40 minutes after she announced her exit.

His curt five word reply stood in contrast to the 213 word farewell Yaccarino sent out. Reps for X did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on who will run the company following Yaccarino’s exit.

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