CEO of Twitter Suddenly Departing After Grok's "MechaHitler" Crisis
The former media exec announced her resignation on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Musk's Grok AI chatbot went on an incredibly racist tirade, calling itself "MechaHitler" and attacking Black and Jewish people in astonishingly hateful terms.
"When Elon Musk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company," Yaccarino tweeted. "I'm immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App."
It's a baffling new development, especially considering the timing. While we still don't know the exact reason for her sudden departure, it's entirely possible Grok's latest Nazi meltdown could've been a factor.
Since Musk bought the platform for a whopping $44 billion in 2022, the site has become unrecognizable. Twitter, which Musk renamed to X in 2023, opened up the floodgates to hate speech and disinformation by systematically dismantling its already woefully inadequate guardrails and content moderation efforts.
Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal executive, was brought on at a time when the site's ad sales started cratering. Adverstisers were spooked by Musk's repeated antisemitic outbursts and were unhappy being associated with literal Nazis on the platform.
The subsequent advertiser exodus left an enormous hole in the company's already precarious finances, culminating in Musk admitting defeat in a January note to staff.
"Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we're barely breaking even," he wrote at the time.
In other words, Yaccarino, brought on as a fixer of broken relationships, had her work cut out to encourage advertisers to return to Musk's hate speech incubator.
Mere months into her stint as the company's CEO, colleagues from the advertising industry were already privately advising Yaccarino to jump ship to save herself following Musk's hateful outbursts.
"I think the advertising community is now working to save the reputation of a beloved member of our industry who does not share Elon Musk's views and certainly did not know them when she accepted the role of CEO," marketing consultant Lou Paskalis told Axios in 2023.
Yaccarino went on to serve as X's CEO for another year and a half, repeatedly siding with Musk throughout numerous crises, many of which were the direct result of the billionaire's own actions.
In short, the legacy Yaccarino leaves behind is bizarre and contradictory, much like Musk himself.
Last month, Yaccarino claimed that 96 percent of advertising clients prior to Musk's acquisition had come back to the platform, promising that the company would return to its 2022 advertising goals "super soon."
But especially now that she has abruptly left the company, and Grok calls for a "second Holocaust," that goal seems as distant as ever.
More on Twitter: Grok Mocks Its Developers as They Try to Delete Its Incredibly Racist Posts
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