X CEO Linda Yaccarino is Leaving the Company After Two Years

Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X announced yesterday that she was leaving the company after “two incredible years.” A former advertising executive at NBCUniversal, Yaccarino was hired by Musk back in 2023 to focus on business operations and bringing back advertisers to the platform.

In her departure message posted on X, Yaccarino thanked Elon Musk for “entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App.” She also highlighted new X features such as Community Notes and teased the upcoming launch of “X Money.”

“X is truly a digital town square for all voices and the world’s most powerful culture signal. We couldn’t have achieved that without the support of our users, business partners, and the most innovative team in the world. I’ll be cheering you all on as you continue to change the world,” Yaccarino wrote.

After two incredible years, I’ve decided to step down as CEO of ?.

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. I’m immensely grateful to him for entrusting me…

— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) July 9, 2025

During Yaccarino’s tenure, X was absorbed by xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup in an all-stock deal valued at $33 billion. xAI is now using X data to train its Grok AI models, and Yaccarino’s departure was announced just a couple of hours before xAI announced its brand new Grok 4 model.

Musk previously described Grok as a “maximally truth-seeking” AI that’s also “anti-woke,” but the chatbot has been a regular source of controversy. Yesterday, Musk publicly addressed the fact that Grok was spewing antisemitic posts. “Grok was too compliant to user prompts. Too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially,” Musk posted on X.

While Yaccarino didn’t provide a reason for her departure, you can imagine that Elon Musk’s antics and a controversial chatbot ultimately made her mission to bring back advertisers on X very difficult.