When Linda Yaccarino joined Elon Musk’s Twitter two years ago, she left a comfortable job as one of the advertising indutry’s most powerful players to bet that she could help Musk grow Twitter into a digital behemoth.
“I’ve long been inspired by your vision to create a brighter future. I’m excited to help bring this vision to Twitter and transform this business together!” Yaccarino said on the platform after Musk announced her hire.
It’s been a long two years. Advertisers revolted. Checkmarks vanished than reappeared. A premium tier was launched. Musk rebranded Twitter as X as he revealed plans to make it into an “everything app.” Generative AI exploded, and Musk folded his Grok AI into the platform. Then Musk’s AI company xAi bought X outright.
Now Yaccarino is out, and the industry is wondering what comes next.
Where does Linda land?
At NBCU, Yaccarino was one of the most powerful people in advertising, but X has been a slog, in large part due to Musk’s own priorities, which have not necessarily put advertiser interests first. According to The Wall Street Journal, X engaged in something of a strong arm campaign to get advertisers back on the platform, including the threat of lawsuits. That may have burned some bridges with ad world players.
At the same time, Yaccarino has maintained key relationships with industry power brokers, and was active in meetings at the Cannes Lions advertising summit less than a month ago. The possibility of another job in the advertising world is not out of the question.
One possibility: Paramount Global.
Former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell is poised to become president of Paramount Global when Skydance completes its acquisition of the company, which is widely expected in the next month or two. Shell worked closely with Yaccarino at NBCU, and promoted her in 2020 to chairman of global advertising and partnerships. Shell was let go by the company just a few weeks before Yaccarino’s exit, but if he and David Ellison do clean house at Paramount, it isn’t crazy to think that there could be a home for Yaccarino at the company.
Don’t count it out: A job in the Trump administration.
Yaccarino’s politics are known to skew conservative, which is one reason some people were not surprised to see her join Musk at Twitter, given his own political leanings. Of course that was before his very public falling out with President Trump.
Perhaps Yaccarino’s split gives her a chance to secure a government role. After all, Trump appointed her in his first term to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. Why not an open ambassadorship or other role?
Probably a longshot: WPP CEO.
There is one very powerful, very important advertising job open right now, and the company is looking for someone with ad chops and an understanding of the perils and opportunities of AI. WPP is on the hunt for a new CEO, with Mark Read set to retire at the end of this year.
The advertising giant is looking for a veteran executive to lead it into the future, and there aren’t many ad executives that have as much experience as Yaccarino. That said, the hard-nosed tactics employed at Twitter and X might be a turnoff for some of the holding company’s clients.
What about X?
Musk did not announce a new CEO at X (his only comment on the matter was a reply to her post: “Thank you for your contributions”), but Yaccarino’s exit raises questions about the future of the platform’s advertising and content strategy.
Musk has grander ambitions, with AI at the forefront, and plans for a payment system and other features. Does he replace her as CEO? Or does he lead he company himself? Just like he does at Tesla, Neuralink, xAI, and The Boring Company (SpaceX, uniquely, has Gwynne Shotwell leading it day-to-day as president and COO).
The company has also been cutting content deals, including for podcasts hosted by Venus and Serena Williams and Khloe Kardashian, an original WWE concept called WWE Speed, as well as a deal with the NFL for its NFL Top 100 series. Will X stay in the original content business?
And then there’s AI. Now that X is part of xAI, there is little doubt that Musk is targeting OpenAI and Anthropic more than Instagram or TikTok. Despite Grok’s very public problems this week (try searching for “Grok MechaHitler” for the backstory), that seems to be Musk’s priority, and the way to raise vast amounts of capital. Investors want AI companies to buy into, not ad-supported social platforms. It’s why Mark Zuckerberg is dangling nine-figure pay packages for AI engineers that join Meta, and why OpenAI spent $6.5 billion to acquire Jony Ive’s new wearables company.