Linda Yaccarino insisted three weeks ago that little had changed when billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk merged X, the social platform that she headed, with xAI, his artificial intelligence group.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the CEO of X and my boss remains the same,\u201d she told the Financial Times in an interview at the Cannes advertising conference. <\/p>\n
Less than three weeks later, neither of those things was true. <\/p>\n
Yaccarino<\/a> on Wednesday announced she was stepping down<\/a> from her role as chief executive after two years, noting X was \u201centering a new chapter\u201d with the tie-up with xAI<\/a>.<\/p>\n Industry insiders say Yaccarino was, in many ways, set up to fail. <\/p>\n She was tasked with bringing back advertising dollars to a platform whose politically polarising owner had told brands who did not spend with them to \u201cgo fuck themselves\u201d. <\/p>\n Musk<\/a> began heaping more pressure on Yaccarino and the pair failed to gel, said four people who worked with both of them. The billionaire\u2019s blunt style clashed with his deputy\u2019s Madison Avenue polish. <\/p>\n \u201cSheryl [Sandberg] found the rhythm with Mark [Zuckerberg],\u201d said one of the people referring to the former chief operating officer of Meta and its CEO respectively. \u201cLinda couldn\u2019t find the rhythm with Elon.\u201d <\/p>\n She successfully boosted X\u2019s advertising business. But once Musk\u2019s AI group xAI bought X for $45bn in March, \u201cshe had to question why she was there\u201d, said Brian Wieser of Madison & Wall, an advertising consultancy.<\/p>\n Given Musk\u2019s hands-on, round-the-clock approach to leading X, Yaccarino never had the kind of control that most CEOs enjoy. <\/p>\n Over the past six months, Musk had been distracted by his work with Donald Trump\u2019s administration, which recently ended in a falling out with the US president.<\/p>\n Returning his sights to his businesses in recent weeks, the billionaire entrepreneur started making unilateral decisions at X \u2014 even within the advertising business that was the heart of Yaccarino\u2019s role. His moves sometimes blindsided her and her team. <\/p>\n \u201cElon calls all the shots,\u201d said one advertising executive, who knows Yaccarino and Musk, arguing her tenure had become particularly untenable over the past three months. \u201cShe tried to ride the tiger but was thrown off.\u201d<\/p>\n Known in the industry as the \u201cVelvet Hammer\u201d, Yaccarino joined X in 2023 after running the advertising business for NBCUniversal, where she was renowned for her full Rolodex and strong relationships with global brands.<\/p>\n She was given the task of wooing back advertising dollars after brands left in droves following Musk\u2019s $44bn 2022 takeover of the platform \u2014 over concerns about his volatile management style and fears he was allowing toxic content to go unchecked.<\/p>\n Beyond advertising, she boosted X\u2019s video features, clinched deals with creators and sports leagues, and developed X Money, a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment service that is set to be released later in the year.<\/p>\n Yaccarino remained publicly loyal to Musk to the end. But some who worked with them believed her talent as a consummate salesperson hurt her relationship with him. <\/p>\n Musk felt Yaccarino was not being fully transparent about the company\u2019s status with advertisers, and put a gloss on reality. He wanted her to more quickly restore the business to financial health.<\/p>\n \u201cHe did not dig her style as a shiny, flashy Madison Avenue executive,\u201d said one person who worked with them both. \u201cHe wants to have an authentic conversation and not be bullshitted.\u201d<\/p>\n Tensions flared about a year ago when Musk issued warnings to Yaccarino to accelerate growth and temporarily called in longtime lieutenant Steve Davis to review X\u2019s finances and performance management. The billionaire later hired former Tubi executive Mahmoud Reza Banki as chief financial officer. <\/p>\n Banki reported directly to Musk, speaking to him frequently, cutting out the chief executive, one person said. Yaccarino\u2019s relationship with Banki quickly became strained, said multiple people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n Yaccarino wanted to allocate budget to content creator funds and bolstering X\u2019s advertising technology, but Banki questioned her spending decisions and was directing investment to other areas of the company, enacting financial austerity, the people said.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s relationship with Yaccarino was also rocked after she helped secure a content deal in early 2024 with former CNN anchor Don Lemon that later blew\u00a0up, according to two people familiar with the matter. After agreeing to the deal, Lemon conducted a contentious interview with Musk in which he asked if he abused drugs, infuriating the billionaire\u00a0who then cancelled the partnership. Lemon is now suing<\/a> Musk and X for breach of contract.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The pressure took its toll on Yaccarino, said multiple people who worked with her, describing her as at times being tearful in the office. <\/p>\n Others note her toughness: \u201cShe lasted two years in a job that would have crushed most people in two weeks,\u201d said one former colleague.<\/p>\n Yaccarino also won the hard-fought battle to haul some advertisers back to the platform. <\/p>\n One year after Musk\u2019s takeover, advertising had fallen about 50 per cent. Yaccarino turned on some of the world\u2019s biggest brands by suing their trade group as well as several companies such as Shell and Pinterest for anti-competitive behaviour. X accused them of an \u201cillegal boycott\u201d of the platform. <\/p>\n Musk\u2019s blossoming relationship with Trump added to the pressure on brands, which had started returning to X. <\/p>\n Market intelligence group Sensor Tower said X has \u201cexhibited renewed strength in its advertiser base\u201d citing \u201clarge and notable brands\u201d such as Temu, Amazon, Apple, Google, Verizon and Dell among the top spenders on the platform in the US since January. <\/p>\n Research firm Emarketer projects X\u2019s revenue will increase to $2.3bn this year, compared with $1.9bn a year ago. Global sales in 2022, when Musk took over, were $4.1bn.<\/p>\n However, some advertisers were resentful of Yaccarino\u2019s methods. <\/p>\n \u201cTo her credit she did get advertisers back to X,\u201d one longtime advertising executive said. \u201cShe did it with a gun, but they came back.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisers did not return \u201cvoluntarily or happily\u201d, said Wieser. For some, \u201cit was better to spend something\u201d to avoid an X legal challenge. <\/p>\n Several marketing executives said toxic content was not the only problem. Yaccarino failed to make X an effective advertising platform that delivered a return on investment, they said. <\/p>\n \u201cYou could argue that she did not do enough to make the platform better for advertising,\u201d said one advertising executive. \u201cMany clients don\u2019t advertise on X not because of the content, but because it does not perform very well.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Yaccarino appeared to be on a roll despite being financially constrained, and some insiders have praised her legacy. \u201cIt was Linda\u2019s drive and energy and relentlessness that helped rebuild some of those relationships,\u201d the former colleague said.<\/p>\n Things changed when Musk returned from his extended foray into politics. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat saved her was the election and Elon diving deep into the administration, because then he took his eye off X a bit,\u201d said one person who worked with them. <\/p>\n The merger with xAI came as Musk turned his focus back to the company. <\/p>\n \u201cNow that he\u2019s back into his businesses, he was never going to put her to be the head of an AI company at all,\u201d the person said. <\/p>\n In recent weeks, Musk took several unilateral decisions around advertising, said people familiar with the matter. He banned hashtags from ads, and announced X would charge brands based on vertical size. He also hired Nikita Bier, an entrepreneur and high-profile X user, as head of product.<\/p>\n Yaccarino thought Musk was not focused enough on safety, an issue important to her, according to one person familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n Yaccarino informed a select few ahead of time of her departure. This coincided with xAI\u2019s Grok chatbot on Wednesday spewing antisemitic hate<\/a>, although the two were unrelated, according to X staff. <\/p>\n X and Yaccarino declined to comment. Musk did not reply to a request for comment. <\/p>\n It is unclear what comes next for the advertising veteran. Known as a committed Republican, her unwavering support for Trump and Musk surprised many advertising associates.<\/p>\n Her years-long defence of Musk could stand in the way of a CEO role at another media or entertainment company, according to industry insiders.<\/p>\n But the X role helped boost her connections in Washington. <\/p>\n She personally knows Trump\u2019s daughter Ivanka Trump, who has helped broker her relationship with the president, said people familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n She is also close friends<\/a> with Scott Turner, the current secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the director of intelligence<\/a> Tulsi Gabbard.\u00a0One longtime confidante said Yaccarino remained strongly supportive of Trump despite his blow-up with Musk. <\/p>\n![\"Meta](\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2F4bb4ee9a-59e8-401b-b65f-414cdcd31076.jpg?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700&dpr=1\")
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