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Key moments during Linda Yaccarino’s tenure at X

Key moments during Linda Yaccarino’s tenure at X

Last week, Linda Yaccarino dropped a bombshell when she announced she was stepping down from her role as CEO of X.

She did not give a reason for the move.

Elon Musk, owner of the platform, responded tersely: “Thank you for your contributions.”

The exit marks the end of two turbulent years at the company formerly known as Twitter, under which Yaccarino and her boss were constantly courting controversy.

Here are some key events during Yaccarino’s tenure.

May 2023

Yaccarino leaves her previous role as advertising chief at NBCUniversal, where she had worked for 12 years overseeing its $13bn ad portfolio, and joins Twitter as CEO.

Musk, who acquired the platform in October 2022, had previously said he would resign as CEO once he found “someone foolish enough to take the job“.

She is entrusted with restoring trust among advertisers, which have begun to pause spending after Musk cut Twitter’s trust and safety team, leading to concerns around brand safety and content moderation.

June 2023

Yaccarino appears at industry events positioning Twitter as a brand-safe platform that will act as a “global town square”. She recruits figures including Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson to host new independent shows on the platform (though they soon move elsewhere).

Simultaneously, Musk moves to further roll back moderation policies and reinstates previously banned accounts.

July 2023

Musk announces Twitter is being rebranded to X in his ambition to make it the “everything app”, inclusive of social video, messaging, dating and financial services.

Yaccarino tweets: “X is the future state of unlimited activity — centred in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.”

Advertisers remain more focused on action being taken to address brand safety. To date, X has added few such new features.

September 2023

Yaccarino gives a calamitous interview at the Code Conference. Speaking to CNBC senior tech correspondent Julia Boorstin, she provides inconsistent figures when asked about the number of users on the platform.

She also appears caught off guard when told about Musk’s plan to charge users a small fee to access X.

“Did he say we were moving to it specifically or is he thinking about it?” Yaccarino asks, apparently unaware of the answer despite her status as CEO.

Yaccarino is also shown to not have the X app on her phone’s home screen.

November 2023

There are many ways to communicate with prospective advertisers. Telling them to “go f**k themselves”, however, may not be the best strategy.

This is Musk’s tactic at The New York Times‘ DealBook Summit and response to advertisers cutting spend on X.

Yaccarino attempts to contain the fallout, but advertisers remain sceptical and continue to pull back from the platform.

April 2024

Yaccarino flies to London to meet agency executives, discussing X’s “everything app” ambition — and no doubt seek to convince them why brands should return to the platform.

Two months later, Musk himself appears at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to woo back advertisers. He is interviewed on the Palais stage by WPP CEO Mark Read, explaining X’s commercial offering and suggesting his earlier expletive was addressed to advertisers that “were insisting on censorship”.

August 2024

In a shocking move, Yaccarino announces on X that the company is suing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and a number of brands, alleging that they had illegally conspired to boycott the platform.

The case is widely considered a frivolous SLAPP suit, given that advertisers are free to choose where to advertise.

GARM is forced to shut down over the legal action.

But what steals the show in the whole debacle is Yaccarino’s peculiar body language in the video announcement.

November 2024

Advertisers are reported to have returned to X. Many previous clients, including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and Lionsgate, are discovered to have resumed spending on the platform, although at lower rates than previously.

It comes even as Musk openly becomes ingratiated with the Donald Trump campaign and its subsequent transition team.

Musk, who later helms the US Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), is subsequently criticised for causing an estimated hundreds of thousands of deaths globally by slashing funding for US foreign aid.

February 2025

Musk’s status within the Trump administration appears to give X leverage in convincing advertisers to return to the platform.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Interpublic has inked an advertising agreement with X after Yaccarino and lawyers from X suggest to executives that IPG’s proposed merger with Omnicom could be halted by the US government lest they spend.

The merger is ultimately greenlit on the condition that the new entity does not “collude” or “coordinate” to “direct advertising away from media publishers based on the publishers’ political or ideological viewpoints”.

Advertisers become increasingly concerned they could be added to X’s lawsuit against GARM and the WFA lest they return to spending. A later Wall Street Journal piece reports that Yaccarino and Musk have threatened major advertisers — including Verizon, Amazon, Unilever, Pinterest and Lego — with lawsuits if they do not spend on X.

March 2025

Musk’s AI company, xAI, purchases X from Musk for $33bn in an all-stock deal.

The move is designed to make it easier to integrate xAI’s chatbot, Grok, into the platform.

It also appears aimed at protecting Musk’s investors, who helped him purchase Twitter for $44bn, from losing money.

May 2025

Yaccarino claims that the vast majority of advertisers have returned to X, announcing at a recent client council hosted in New York City in which more than 200 ad industry leaders were present.

“We’re thrilled to have welcomed 96% of our top advertisers back to the platform over the past year and the enthusiasm in the packed room was electric,” she shares.

According to data from research company MediaRadar, X’s US ad revenue fell from $2bn in 2023 to $1.4bn in 2024, although the number of companies advertising on the platform grew by 15%.

July 2025

Yaccarino suddenly resigns. The timing coincides with a number of inflammatory posts on X made by Grok, including antisemitic comments in response to user posts about the Texas flooding. It is not understood if Yaccarino resigned over the matter.

On the day of her announcement, the verified blue tick disappears from Yaccarino’s X handle, @lindayaX.

The verification badge has since reappeared, but it is unclear if she is paying for it.

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