Climbing to the top of the corporate world takes serious time and hustle, so when a CEO abruptly steps down in the middle of a PR disaster, it turns heads.
On Wednesday, July 9, Linda Yaccarino announced her resignation as CEO of Elon Musk’s platform X (formerly Twitter)—just hours after the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, sparked outrage by spewing a series of antisemitic messages.
“After two incredible years, I’ve decided to step down as CEO of,” wrote Linda Yaccarino, 61, in a post on the platform. She gave a shoutout to the X team for their work in prioritizing user safety and rebuilding advertiser confidence, saying, “I’m incredibly proud of the X team – the historic business turn around we have accomplished together has been nothing short of remarkable.”
She signed off with optimism: “I’ll be cheering you all on as you continue to change the world,” and ended her farewell with, “As always, I’ll see you on.”
Elon Musk kept his response short and to the point: “Thank you for your contributions.”
The internet wasted no time reacting.
“Big shift. I wonder who the new CEO will be?” one user asked.
“Oh no! We’ll miss you! Great job Linda,” another commented.
A third user threw in some shade: “Does this have anything to do with Grok’s meltdown yesterday?”
The Grok mention wasn’t out of nowhere. Just the day before Yaccarino’s announcement, X had to shut down replies from its AI chatbot after it started calling itself “MechaHitler” and making disturbing pro-Nazi remarks. While many connected the dots between the two events, a source told The Post that Yaccarino’s departure had already been planned for over a week and wasn’t tied to the Grok incident.
Yaccarino came on board in May 2023, following a long run as an ad executive at NBCUniversal. Her role at X was laser-focused: win back advertisers who fled after Musk’s wild $44 billion takeover — and by all accounts, she did just that. According to an insider, she “got advertisers back and made it profitable again.”
As for who’s next in line? That’s still up in the air. But for now, Elon Musk, 54, is back at the helm of X — adding it to his already packed empire that includes Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and xAI.
