The news: Linda Yaccarino, CEO of Elon Musk’s X, left the company Wednesday as the social platform faced a major AI controversy—raising questions about the platform’s future and how advertisers will navigate the shift.
- Yaccarino, who became CEO of X in 2023, announced her decision to leave in an X post, where she thanked Musk but did not specify the reason for her decision.
- Her departure comes at a turbulent time for X, which is seeing renewed controversy over responses from its AI chatbot Grok. In a series of posts on Tuesday, Grok generated antisemitic outputs, including praising Hitler and referring to itself as “MechaHitler,” despite Musk’s claims that X had “improved Grok significantly” in a recent update. Grok was briefly restricted to image generation after the posts.
- X’s enduring controversy is having an impact. A Turkish court ordered a ban on Grok for its offensive content, including posts insulting Turkey’s president and his late mother. Poland has also said it will file a complaint with the EU regarding Grok’s responses.
What it means for X: Despite calls from some advertisers for Yaccarino to resign, the former CEO played a significant role in convincing big brands that left after Musk’s purchase to return to X. Yaccarino previously claimed that, during her tenure, over 96% of X’s previous top advertisers returned.