Questions swirl after X CEO Linda Yaccarino departs from the platform

Her departure marks the end of two tumultuous years at the platform, whereby for a lot of her earlier tenure, the industry wondered how much power she truly had, working for X owner, billionaire Elon Musk.

Yet despite such a high-profile departure from the platform, Musk has yet to make any public comment (or post) on the matter. 

Still, while Yaccarino’s put a full stop in her X career, the platform still lives on. And as such, these are the five key questions that’ll be doing the rounds in marketing circles for the foreseeable:

Who will take over from Yaccarino?

Who will take over from Yaccarino? That’s the multibillion dollar question — if there’s even a job to take. Elon Musk handpicked her to soothe advertisers and bring order to the chaos only to undermine her repeatedly. Now, with Yaccarino on her way out, it’s unclear whether Musk will bother finding a replacement or simply absorb the role himself as he’s done before. The bigger question might be: who would want it? The next CEO would inherit a platform in flux a skeptical ad market and a boss who’s unpredictable at best, hostile to structure at worst.

What impact will Yaccarino’s departure have on X’s ad revenue moving forward?

As a former ad exec herself, Yaccarino joining X seemed like the way to build bridges back (albeit slowly) with the advertising community.

And arguably she did. According to eMarketer, ad spend on X more than halved between 2022 and 2023, following the takeover. But since then, spend did return — just nowhere near to the extent it was before Musk originally acquired the platform back in October 2022. 

The number of companies advertising each month on X during the second half of 2024 was up 18% year-over-year, and increased further by 30% in January 2025 to 4,200, according to data by Media Radar.

In December 2024, 52 of the top advertisers spending on the platform at that time had not advertised on X prior to Musk’s takeover in October 2022, according to data from Sensor Tower, further indicating that X has cultivated a new base of advertisers.

However, let’s not forget X filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which resulted in its closure back in August 2024, yet more recently in June, the platform managed to broker a deal with Omnicom.

Even user-wise, X recorded more than 145 million worldwide mobile daily active users until May this year, however it’s still a 14% year-over-year decline, according to estimates by Sensor Tower. At the same time, Yaccarino herself confirmed at Possible in April that the platform had amassed 600 million monthly active users.

What becomes of X’s product roadmap moving forward? 

That’s anyone’s guess. Yaccarino was the one pitching a vision where X became an “everything app”, integrating payments, video and AI via Grok. But with her likely exit, the fate of that roadmap is murky to say the least. Musk may double down on his own vision or toss the whole thing and start afresh — again. The platform’s strategy has always been more reactive than reliable, and without Yaccarino to package it for partners and advertisers, X’s next iteration looks even more uncertain. The only constant: Musk’s appetite for disruption over direction. 

Will there be another advertiser boycott now that Yaccarino is out?

Unlikely. While her exit removes one of the few remaining bridges between Madison Avenue and Musk, major advertisers are in no rush to make waves. Another boycott is always possible, especially if brand safety issues ensue, but most marketers are treading carefully. Few want to provoke Musk given his penchant for reprisals. Publicly pulling dollars could invite backlash, which would be precarious given the volatile state of the macroeconomic environment. For now, most will watch from the sidelines.

X did not respond to Digiday’s request for comment.