X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced Wednesday that she is stepping down after leading the Elon Musk-owned platform for just over two years.
“I am immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, transforming the company, and making X the everything app,” Yaccarino posted on X. “I am incredibly proud of the X team—the historic turnaround we accomplished together has been nothing short of remarkable.”
His departure comes a day after Grok, X’s artificial intelligence model, became unresponsive and began posting anti-Semitic and pro-Hitler comments. Several X users responded to his post on Wednesday, asking if the GROK incident played a role in his departure from the company.
Yaccarino was named CEO of X in June 2023, less than a year after Musk purchased the platform formerly known as Twitter. She joined X from NBCUniversal, where she was president of global advertising and partnerships, and her move to Musk’s platform shocked many in the industry.
Yaccarino, soon after joining the company, said it was committed to what Musk called a “free speech, not freedom of reach” approach, where the platform was less focused on censoring and booting users than under his previous leadership.
“X is enabling an independence of information that some people find uncomfortable,” Yaccarino said in 2023. “We are a platform that empowers people to make their own decisions.”
She said the prospect placed X at the “unique and incredible intersection of free speech and Main Street” and would make it more attractive to advertisers. After a rocky few years, that gamble seemed to pay off, with advertisers like Disney and Apple returning to the platform following Musk’s controversial comments. Cutting costs and headcount also helped X recover to a $44 billion valuation, the same price Musk paid for it before being acquired by Musk’s AI platform in March.
Musk didn’t respond to Yaccarino’s post within half an hour of her announcement. And representatives for X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from WheRs about who will run the company after Yaccarino’s departure.
