X CEO Linda Yaccarino resigns after two years at helm of Musk's social media platform
Washington, Jul 9 (AP): X CEO Linda Yaccarino said she's stepping down after two years running Elon Musk's social media platform.
Yaccarino posted a positive message Wednesday about her tenure at the company formerly known as Twitter and said “the best is yet to come as X enters a new chapter with” Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI, maker of the chatbot Grok.
Musk responded to Yaccarino's announcement with his own 5-word statement on X: “Thank you for your contributions.”
Musk hired Yaccarino, a veteran ad executive, in May 2023 after buying Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and cutting most of its staff.
He said at the time that Yaccarino's role would be focused mainly on running the company's business operations, leaving him to focus on product design and new technology.
In accepting the job, Yaccarino was taking on the challenge of getting big brands back to advertising on the social media platform after months of upheaval following Musk's takeover.
A number of companies had pulled back on ad spending - the platform's chief source of revenue - over concerns that Musk's thinning of content restrictions was enabling hateful and toxic speech to flourish.
Two years later, those concerns have not subsided. A recent update to Grok led to a flood of antisemitic commentary from the chatbot this week that included praise of Adolf Hitler.
“We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,” the Grok account posted on X early Wednesday, without being more specific.
Some experts have tied Grok's behaviour to Musk's deliberate efforts to mold Grok as an alternative to chatbots he considers too “woke” such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. In late June, he invited X users to help train the chatbot on their commentary in a way that invited a flood of racist responses and conspiracy theories.
“Please reply to this post with divisive facts for @Grok training,” Musk said in the June 21 post. “By this I mean things that are politically incorrect, but nonetheless factually true.”
A similar instruction was later baked into Grok's “prompts” that instruct it on how to respond, which told the chatbot to “not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated.” That part of the instructions was later deleted.
“To me, this has all the fingerprints of Elon's involvement,” said Talia Ringer, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Yaccarino has not publicly commented on the latest hate speech controversy. She has, at times, ardently defended Musk's approach, including in a lawsuit against liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America over a report that claimed leading advertisers' posts on X were appearing alongside neo-Nazi and white nationalist content. The report led some advertisers to pause their activity on X.
A federal judge last year dismissed X's lawsuit against another nonprofit, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which has documented the increase in hate speech on the site since it was acquired by the Tesla owner.
X is also in an ongoing legal dispute with major advertisers - including CVS, Mars, Unilever, Lego, Nestle, Shell and Tyson Foods - over what it has alleged was a “massive advertiser boycott” that deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.
Thank you for your contributions
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2025
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Siddaramaiah seeks Centre's urgent intervention over commercial LPG cylinder shortage
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday sought the Centre's urgent intervention to ensure supply of adequate commercial LPG cyclinders to hotels and restaurants in Bengaluru.
He said hotels, restaurants and catering establishments in the city would be forced to suspend operations if supplies are not restored, affecting a large number of students and working professionals who depend on them for regular meals.
In his letter to Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri, he also requested him to issue appropriate directions to the oil marketing companies to address the current supply constraints that would help ease the situation.
Referring to the March 9 order issued by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas prioritising LPG supply for domestic consumers, Siddaramaiah said while the intention behind the order to ensure uninterrupted LPG supply to households across the country is well understood and appreciated, its implementation appears to have led to an unintended shortage of commercial LPG in Bengaluru.
ALSO READ: Govt rejigs gas allocation to ensure uninterrupted cooking gas, CNG supply
He cited that several hotels and restaurant associations in the city have reported that they are unable to procure commercial LPG cylinders, and many establishments are expressing concern that they may have to temporarily shut operations if supplies are not restored soon.
Bengaluru has a large ecosystem of small restaurants, mess facilities, and catering units that serve lakhs of people every day.
According to him, as per the discussions held with the oil marketing companies, the state's commercial LPG demand has traditionally been supported by supplies from the three OMCs-IOCL (around 500-550 MT per day), HPCL (around 300 MT per day) and BPCL (around 230 MT per day) and the sudden disruption of this supply is now severely affecting hotels, catering establishments and other commercial users in Bengaluru.
Any disruption to their functioning will have a direct impact on daily life in the city, he said.
"This issue also affects a large number of students and working professionals who live away from their homes and depend on hotels and mess facilities for regular meals. In addition, Choultries (wedding halls), hostels, and event venues that rely on commercial LPG for food preparation are also facing uncertainty, particularly with scheduled social and community events," the chief minister said in the letter.
Given the scale of dependence on commercial LPG in a metropolitan city like Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah sought the union minister's intervention to ensure that adequate commercial LPG supply is made available to hotels, restaurants, choultries, community halls and any other pure commercial establishments.
"Appropriate directions to the oil marketing companies to address the current supply constraints would help ease the situation. A timely resolution will help ensure that businesses continue to operate smoothly while also avoiding inconvenience to thousands of people who rely on these services on a daily basis," he added.
