Linda Yaccarino had the title. She had the business patter, the resume and the profile. What she didn’t have was management — or at the least not the sort that mattered.
Her function was by no means about actual energy. It was about optics: a seasoned media government instilled to calm manufacturers and play the grownup within the room whereas the partitions burned. However this wasn’t only a case of being handed a no-win script. Yaccarino made her personal selections too.
She defended the platform as advertisers fled. She echoed her boss Elon Musk’s speaking factors, generally twisting knowledge and ducking accountability. And he or she reportedly leaned into techniques that blurred moral strains. She wasn’t simply alongside for the experience. At occasions, she helped steer it.
Evidently, her resignation didn’t come as a shock. If something, the query is why it took this lengthy. Since she arrived in the summertime of 2023, her job has been much less about main a enterprise than containing a disaster — serving as a sort of reputational buffer between Musk’s erratic conduct and the promoting group he’d all however alienated.
However buffers don’t final ceaselessly. And as soon as X was formally folded into Musk’s AI enterprise xAI earlier this 12 months, her CEO function was successfully decreased to main what amounted to the social wing of a a lot bigger, founder-dominated mission.
By the tip, the brevity of Musk’s response to her exit matched the fact of her function. Yaccarino introduced her depart in an X publish on Wednesday, and Musk’s solely response on the matter was to answer to her publish stating: “Thanks to your contributions.”
X didn’t return a request for touch upon Yaccarino’s departure.
“Linda’s farewell tweet is attention-grabbing to say the least, as she boldly claims success in ‘turning the corporate round’ and ‘restoring advertiser confidence’, neither of which is true,” mentioned Ruben Schreurs, CEO of media administration agency Ebiquity. “We’re once more witnessing the sadly fashionable playbook of loudly blowing your individual trumpet, claiming successes that aren’t actual, by no means admitting to errors, and blaming all setbacks on different individuals and exterior components.”
His feedback echo a consensus that’s hardened over the past two years as entrepreneurs ran out of endurance with the platform, with its proprietor and with the manager who selected to face between them.
“X is only a product enterprise that has monetized poorly as an adverts enterprise,” mentioned a senior marketer on situation of anonymity. “Most of its advertisers had been the short-tail like me — not the lengthy tail. There’s none of that there.”
It wasn’t meant to finish this fashion.
When Musk appointed Yaccarino in Could 2023, it felt — briefly — like a rational pivot. Right here was one of many promoting world’s final operators: polished, pragmatic and deeply linked. Hiring somebody like that was seen as a sign that Musk, having gutted Twitter and rebranded it X, may really be prepared at hand over some management and stabilize a enterprise that was mired in a model boycott.
And for a second, it appeared prefer it may work.
For about 5 months, there have been indicators of momentum. Workers praised her affect internally. The corporate gave the impression to be shifting — nonetheless inconsistently — towards restoring construction. The message to advertisers began to take a extra measured tone.
“I like the brand new vibe on the workplace significantly better than the previous one now,” mentioned an exec who labored with the corporate’s advert gross sales crew. “I believe it’s simply extra clear what aim they’re going after. And so they work extra collectively. There have been extra [staff] within the workplace. So there’s simply extra power and it felt fairly good.”
However that assumption now feels quaint. If Musk’s management of X was chaotic, Yaccarino’s tenure added a brand new layer: she was tasked with wooing again advertisers whereas Musk continued to publish conspiracies, elevate extremist accounts and enmesh X together with his private politics and rising AI ambitions.
To some, this may occasionally nonetheless seem to be a harsh learn. In spite of everything, there’s an argument that she delivered: X’s advert income is projected to return to progress in 2025, after plummeting by greater than half following Musk’s takeover, based on eMarketer. However then have a look at how that restoration was engineered.
Yaccarino and Musk led a “strong-arm” effort, threatening authorized motion towards advertisers who paused spending after the takeover, based on The Wall Road Journal. X filed an antitrust lawsuit towards the World Federation of Advertisers and main manufacturers like Unilever, CVS, Mars, Lego and Pinterest — accusing them of collaborating in an “unlawful boycott”. Some advertisers had been dropped from these fits solely after returning to the platform. Others reportedly feared political retaliation. IPG, as an illustration, to threat delays in federal merger approvals if it didn’t fall again into line.
So sure, the advert {dollars} did begin to trick again. However not essentially out of renewed confidence within the platform. Usually, it was out of warning. Generally worry. And barely on the scale that mattered.
“X’s advert enterprise is recovering, however among the techniques the corporate has reportedly used to get advertisers to spend are questionable at greatest,” mentioned Jasmine Enberg, vp and principal analyst, social media and creator financial system at eMarketer. “Concern or intimidation can work within the quick time period, however it’s not a sustainable tactic.”
Which is why the comeback feels extra like a technical rebound than an actual restoration. In keeping with Guideline, advert spending over the primary half of the 12 months is up 62% versus the identical interval a 12 months in the past. However progress off a crater at all times seems to be steeper. The platform remains to be taking part in in a smaller league. In 2022, the 12 months Musk acquired it, the micro-blogging website made round $4.73 billion, based on eMarketer. This 12 months, it’s anticipated to make $2.26 billion.
And that’s the actual story of Yaccarino’s tenure at X: it didn’t should go this fashion.
There have been moments — fleeting, however actual — when it seemed like that completely different end result was doable. Across the X Council conferences, specifically, a glimpse of what might have began to take form. These gatherings introduced collectively advertisers, company execs and media homeowners, providing a structured discussion board the place model considerations had been acknowledged, if not at all times addressed. Yaccarino seemed comfy in that function: the linked, the negotiator, the grown-up within the room really doing the work.
“She’s magnetic. She’s the whole lot you’d desire a struggling firm to have from a management perspective,” mentioned one advert exec who attended a kind of conferences. “She’s sensible. You’re instantly nearly enthralled together with her and wish to belief the whole lot she says. You genuinely purchase into her, and the crew has purchased into her.”
If that model of Yaccarino had prevailed — the one the place entrepreneurs had been heard and model security wasn’t handled like a punchline — then sure, possibly she might’ve turned the enterprise round. The appropriate manner.
As a result of when she had house to function, Yaccarino moved. In her first 12 months, she launched an advert income share mannequin for creators in addition to partnerships with the likes of Khloe Kardashian and Serena Williams. She brokered model security partnerships with DoubleVerify and Integral Advert Science. She secured leisure offers with the NBA and WWE, to call a couple of. She even reinstated the transparency report for the primary time since 2021. In her second 12 months, she confirmed up at Cannes as X CEO, holding advertiser conferences from a collection on the Carlton lodge. And that was simply the spotlight reel.
However for each hit, there have been louder misses.
From Musk telling advertisers to “go fuck themselves” onstage, the lawsuits, to the platform’s alignment with political extremes, and what was speculated to be her “popping out celebration” at 2023’s Code Convention however changed into a flop — having to justify her bosses actions and defending the enterprise — every step ahead got here with a handful of steps again.
“As horrible as this may occasionally sound, I don’t suppose something went nicely,” mentioned Shamsul Chowdhury, international evp of social at Jellyfish. “X remains to be not thought of a high tier advert platform and I do know it’s unfair to suppose Linda might have modified that notion in two years, however I don’t suppose X has accomplished something to even remotely get advertisers .
What occurs subsequent isn’t actually about succession. X doesn’t want a brand new CEO as a result of the title itself doesn’t imply a lot. Musk stays the decision-maker. And if this week’s information proves something, it’s that the period of attempting to reconcile X’s identification as each tech firm and media enterprise is over.
In the long run, Yaccarino was caught between two incompatible realities: the logic of company promoting and the logic of Musk. The previous required consistency, guardrails and belief. The latter demand none of these issues.
She tried to handle each. Now, she doesn’t should.
