Linda Yaccarino was never given real control at X, experts say

Linda Yaccarino didn’t lose her job. She was boxed out of it. That’s the view now flooding the ad world after the former NBCUniversal executive announced her exit from X, Elon Musk’s messy social platform.

Her departure was no surprise to anyone still paying attention, because the truth is, she was never meant to succeed in the first place.

According to the Financial Times, the warning signs were there from the very beginning, long before Elon merged X with his AI company, xAI, and long before Linda said in public that she was still CEO, which turned out to be false.

She got the top job in 2023 with one goal: bring advertisers back to a platform Elon had turned radioactive. His “go fuck yourself” message to brands that pulled their spending after his $44 billion takeover was still echoing.

Linda had the contacts, the polish, and the track record to try. But she never had the power. She was tasked with cleaning up a mess created by someone who wasn’t going to let her actually run anything.

Elon stripped her power behind the scenes

From the start, Elon micromanaged decisions, especially in advertising, which was supposed to be Linda’s turf. Brian Wieser of Madison & Wall said once Elon folded X into xAI for $45 billion, Linda had to ask herself why she was still showing up to work.

By then, Elon was making solo calls, like banning hashtags in ads, changing how pricing worked, and appointing Nikita Bier as head of product without consulting her.

She was publicly saying things were normal. In an interview at the Cannes ad festival three weeks before she quit, Linda claimed, “I’m the CEO of X and my boss remains the same.” But insiders allegedly told the Financial Times her title meant nothing by then.

“Elon calls all the shots,” said one executive familiar with the situation. Others said she never managed to build the working chemistry Elon wanted. “Sheryl found the rhythm with Mark,” one person explained. “Linda couldn’t find the rhythm with Elon.”

Things got worse when Elon brought in longtime lieutenant Steve Davis to tear through X’s finances, then brought on Mahmoud Reza Banki as CFO. Banki didn’t report to Linda, he dealt directly with Elon. People familiar with the company said Linda and Banki clashed hard. She wanted funds for creator payouts and better ad tech. Banki wanted to cut spending and reroute investment elsewhere. She was out of the loop in her own department.

Ad wins came with lawsuits, not loyalty

To fix X’s revenue problem, Linda took a scorched-earth approach. She hauled big brands like Shell and Pinterest into court, accusing them of illegally boycotting X. She also sued their trade group. Brian Wieser said brands only returned “to avoid an X legal challenge.”

Even the ones who came back didn’t want to be there. “She did it with a gun,” said one longtime ad executive. Still, she landed deals with Google, Dell, Apple, Temu, Amazon, and Verizon. Research firm Emarketer said X will hit $2.3 billion in revenue this year, up from $1.9 billion.

But that’s still a long drop from 2022’s $4.1 billion before Elon stepped in. Even outside of ads, Linda pushed ahead. She launched X Money, a peer-to-peer payment service expected later this year, boosted video content, and made creator deals.

Those efforts got no runway once Elon re-entered the picture after months working with Trump in Washington. By then, his return meant her days were numbered. “Now that he’s back into his businesses, he was never going to put her to be the head of an AI company at all,” one person said.

The lemon fallout exposed the real cracks

In early 2024, Linda brokered a deal with Don Lemon for new content on X. But Elon canceled it after Lemon asked him in an interview whether he abused drugs. That fallout led to a lawsuit and worsened Linda’s already fragile standing. Staff described her as often tearful. She never spoke publicly against Elon. But privately, she thought he wasn’t focused enough on safety issues, which were high on her list.

She quietly told close colleagues she was leaving. Around the same time, xAI’s chatbot Grok posted antisemitic content, which staff said wasn’t connected, but didn’t help the situation either. Neither X nor Linda commented, and Elon ignored questions about the exit.

What comes next for Linda is uncertain. She’s a longtime Republican and close with Trump’s circle. She knows Ivanka Trump personally and has strong ties to Scott Turner and Tulsi Gabbard. Some think she’ll end up in the administration or as a “free speech” advocate — a direction she hinted at when she began wearing a diamond “Free Speech” necklace last year.

Trump ally Mike Benz, now running a speech watchdog group, praised her on X: “She stepped up for all of us in the face of what seemed like insurmountable pressure.” Linda reposted it. Lou Paskalis, CEO of AJL Advisory, summed up her situation this way: “She doesn’t need to work, but she needs to go out in style. And I think that’s what’s next for her.”

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