The CEO who never was: how Linda Yaccarino was set up to fail at Elon Musk’s X

Ex-NBC executive was tasked with building an ‘everything app’, but billionaire owner was biggest obstacle in her path

In May 2023, when Linda Yaccarino, an NBC advertising executive, joined what was then still known as Twitter, she was given a tall order: repair the company’s relationship with advertisers after a chaotic year of being owned by Elon Musk. But just weeks after she became CEO, Musk posted an antisemitic tweet that drove away major brands like Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate and Warner Bros Discovery to pause their advertising on the platform. Musk delivered an apology for the tweet later at a conference – which he called the worst post he’s ever done – but it came with a message to advertisers, specifically the Disney CEO Bob Iger: “Go fuck yourselves”. Yaccarino was in the audience of the conference.

“I don’t want them to advertise,” he said. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money, go fuck yourself. Go. Fuck. Yourself,” he said. “Is that clear? Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience, that’s how I feel.”