Linda Yaccarino announced on Wednesday she is stepping down as CEO of Elon Musk’s social media platform after two years at the helm.
“When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company,” Yaccarino said in a post on X. “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.”
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Yaccarino did not disclose the reason for her departure or her next steps in the post.
She praised the company for what she described as a “historic business turnaround” under her two-year leadership, highlighting the company’s efforts to prioritize child safety on the platform and restore advertiser confidence. She also teased in the post that the “best is yet to come” as the company enters a new chapter with Musk’s artificial intelligence company, XAI.
In March, XAI acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued the social media platform at $33 billion.
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Musk thanked Yaccarino for her contributions to the company in a post on X. However, he didn’t disclose who would be replacing her.
The Elon Musk-led ownership group purchased Twitter in late 2022 for $44 billion, took the company private and rebranded it as X. However, the platform has faced significant challenges in retaining advertisers, including reassuring them that it has sufficient content moderation policies in place.
Musk had a roughly seven-month tenure in the position before tapping in Yaccarino. He made the formal announcement in mid-May 2023. Yaccarino was meant to “focus primarily on business operations,” while Musk’s role would center on its product design and technology, the billionaire has said in the past.
After his announcement, she said in a tweet she was “excited to help bring” his vision “to create a brighter future” to the social media platform and “transform” the company with him.
After taking over, she focused on restoring relationships with advertisers, fostering relationships with content creators, creating partnerships with major entertainment brands like WWE and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding efforts to counter the sexual exploitation of children online.
Yaccarino spent more than a decade as an executive at NBCUniversal and helped to transform “the $70 billion premium video ecosystem,” according to the media company.
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