The career rise of Linda Yaccarino, from NBCU intern to leading Elon Musk's X before stepping down
Yaccarino has had a long career in advertising, from her early days as an intern at NBCU.
Her career includes a stint working for both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Linda Yaccarino made waves when she announced she was stepping down as the CEO of X on July 9, 2025, but her career didn't start in the tech space.
From decades at Turner Broadcasting, to climbing the ladder at NBCUniversal, to becoming chief executive of X, Yaccarino has climbed the advertising ladder.
Here's a quick breakdown on her path to — and now away from — X.
Yaccarino is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University.
According to her LinkedIn, Yaccarino was a liberal arts student who studied telecommunications between 1981 and 1985.
She had an early internship at NBCU, where she eventually worked decades later.
Yaccarino told Salesforce in an interview that she arrived on her first day as a "bright cheery new intern," but soon learned that the company didn't have a record of her in its system and she ended up on the media planning team.
"That's where the love affair was born," Yaccarino said of her interest in working in the media industry.
Yaccarino spent nearly 20 years at Turner Broadcasting System.
She spent nearly 20 years at Turner, formerly known as Turner Broadcasting System, eventually rising up to the role of executive vice president/chief operating officer of advertising sales, marketing and acquisitions.
Yaccarino worked there until late 2011.
Yaccarino worked at NBCU for 11 years.
An NBCU "boomerang" return hire, Yaccarino once again worked at NBCU after leaving Turner.
She began her second chapter at the company as its president of cable entertainment and digital advertising sales.
She eventually became the company's advertising chief.
Throughout her time at NBCU, Yaccarino rose to become the company's chairperson of global advertising and partnerships. She oversaw around 2,000 employees who produced more than $100 billion in ad sales, according to her old company profile page.
At NBCU, Yaccarino was key to the company's push into digital streaming.
Yaccarino was a strong advocate for NBCU's foray into streaming television through the service Peacock.
She also worked to keep NBCU competitive with Big Tech companies like Meta and Google.
In May 2023, Yaccarino announced that she had resigned from NBCU "effective immediately."
In a statement at the time, Yaccarino said that "it has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team."
Elon Musk announced Yaccarino's role at Twitter the same day she announced her resignation.
Musk made the announcement on what was still Twitter at the time: " @LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology."
He called her "smart, fair and reasonable" in a separate post after some conservatives on Twitter had criticized her ties to the World Economic Forum, an annual event for executives and influential figures in Davos, Switzerland.
Yaccarino also worked with President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden's administrations.
She served on a sports fitness and nutrition council for two years after Trump appointed her to the role in 2018.
In 2021, she worked with the Biden administration on an educational COVID-19 ad campaign.
She was CEO of X during a chaotic two years.
Musk renamed Twitter to X one month into Yaccarino's tenure, and she led the company during a tumultuous time.
She oversaw the platform during an advertiser exodus, working to convince advertisers to return. Advertisers began to return under her leadership, but Musk's changes to X — including loosening content moderation — continue to pose potential challenges.
Yaccarino announced she's stepping down as CEO of X on July 9, 2025.
After two incredible years, I've decided to step down as CEO of 𝕏.
When @elonmusk 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. I'm immensely grateful to him for entrusting me…
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) July 9, 2025
Yaccarino made the announcement in a post on X: "I'm incredibly proud of the X team - the historic business turn around we have accomplished together has been nothing short of remarkable."
She hasn't indicated what she plans to do next.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
5 hours ago
- UPI
Musk's X: Britain's Internet safety law 'seriously infringes' free speech
"Many are now concerned that a plan ostensibly intended to keep children safe is at risk of seriously infringing on the public's right to free expression," the Global Government Affairs wing of the Elon Musk-owned X said Friday on Britain's newly-enacted Online Safety Act. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/ UPI | License Photo Aug. 1 (UPI) -- The Elon Musk-owned social media platform X said Friday that Britain's newly-enacted Online Safety Act "seriously" is on the cusp of violating free speech masked as the fight to protect kids from explicit online content. "Many are now concerned that a plan ostensibly intended to keep children safe is at risk of seriously infringing on the public's right to free expression," the Global Government affairs wing of the Bastrop, Texas-headquartered X said Friday. Britain's Online Safety Act created a new set of legal duties that tech companies must abide by. It mandated they evaluate the potential of users encountering illegal Internet content and children being exposed to online harm, which included a required safety assessment. "When lawmakers approved these measures, they made a conscientious decision to increase censorship in the name of 'online safety,'" the letter stated. The British parliament passed it in September 2023 in the quest to improve online safety for young people. X argues the British people may not of been aware of the "trade-off" when London passed the bill. The OSA covers more than 130 offenses ranging from harassment and "assisting or encouraging suicide" to terrorism, fraud and "unlawful immigration." It targets tech entities that spans "social media or video-sharing platforms, messaging, gaming and dating apps, forums and file-sharing sites." According to the former Twitter, the act's "laudable intentions" were at risk of "being overshadowed by the breadth of its regulatory reach." "While everyone agrees protecting children is a critical responsibility, it is also clear that an overly rigorous statutory framework layered with a 'voluntary' code and heightened police monitoring, oversteps the intended mission," it continued. On Friday, a British watchdog group indicated that those fears may may be valid. "The BBC is now reporting that information about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, UK rape gangs, and more is being censored online due to the government's new Online 'Safety' Act," Silkie Carlo, director of Britain-based Big Brother Watch, posted on X. "Well done lads," she added in jest. X's government affairs offiec says free speech will suffer without a "more balanced, collaborative approach." Pornhub and other major pornographic websites had a targeted end of July date to implement its age verification mechanisms in order to comply. Musk, 54, has characterized himself as a "free speech absolutist." The former White House DOGE adviser, for his part, has said the act's purpose was "suppression of the people" as he tweeted a petition calling for it's repeal that got more than 450,000 signatures. OSA's deadline required pornographic websites to implement "robust" age verification methods or face fines close to $20 million or equal to 10% of company proceeds. X cited British regulator Ofcom how it "to date" had allegedly taken a "heavy-handed approach" to enforcement, which it said included a boost in resources, additional "layers of bureaucratic oversight and signaling an aggressive approach to ensuring compliance." In a recent Ofcom research study, some 8% of children aged of 8 to 14 accessed a pornography source over a 28-day period. It included 19% boys and 11% of girls from 13 to 14 years old. In addition to the increased government regulations, X officials also cite Britain's new "National Internet Intelligence Investigations" team unit company officials say "sets off alarm bells" and will further "intensify scrutiny." The social media company said the Internet teams "sole" focus is to monitor social media for "signs of unrest, such as anti-immigrant sentiment, to prevent real-world violence." "While positioned as a safety measure, it clearly goes far beyond that intent," the post reads. "This move has set off alarm bells for free speech advocates who characterize it as excessive and potentially restrictive."
Forbes
8 hours ago
- Forbes
Destiny 2's Power Leveling And Loot System Is The Worst It's Ever Been
Accuse me of being overly negative about the state of Destiny 2 if you want, but there have been so many backward and baffling decisions in The Edge of Fate that it actively makes me upset, given how long I've played and loved this game. Right now, the combination of how power level and loot farming interact in Destiny 2 is the worst I've ever seen. Sure, actual loot itself has been much worse (remember fixed roll days?), but how you power and get loot is simply inexcusable, and I have no idea how this system was designed. The longer this expansion goes, the more clear it becomes. Destiny 2 is now nothing more than a slow crawl through 450 levels of power with loot being a side-effect of hitting those marks, rather than a true chase. Right now, attempting to get high-tier gear does not have anything to do with beating challenging content. It has to do with these arbitrary power cut-offs. Get to 300+ rank, you will instantly start drowning in T3s. Get to 400, T4s. And now, the very few no-lifers that have reached 450 will see boatloads of Tier 5 loot, not for achieving some great in-game feat, but just…a Crucible game, as 450 hauler Diffizzle has demonstrated: FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Simply being these numbers and then playing any content at all near that level is what gets you the new Tier. And the entire game turning into an arduous light level slog, light level being something that most players were glad to see almost entirely left behind the last few years, is exhausting. This has raised additional debates about the 'efficient' way to get this high, namely running ultra-fast Portal missions like Caldera in Solo Ops or Starcrossed in Pinnacle Ops to get random gear to upgrade your slots. Random gear you will not care about, since your goal is to get to higher and higher tiers. There's the idea that 'well, you can play whatever you want and get there' rather than boring grinding the same few things. That's true! However, if your main goal is to reach these higher tiers, playing something that takes four times as long for the same amount of power upgrades for 'fun' is not 'fun' when it's severely delaying the actual gear farming you want to do. The current system requires at least dozens upon dozens of grinding to reach even the start of the farm you want to pursue. And once you get there, it rains Tier 5s like you've won the lottery. So then that chase can be over practically as soon as it started given that T5 guns now have a million perks and it won't be hard to find what you want. You can say that you don't really even need anything more than T2, but I mean, this is a loot game. If five Tiers exist, the goal is to get those high Tiers, because of course it is. This is all completely backward. This has resulted in things like the raid giving out bottom-tier loot, or Kepler public events giving out multiple Tier 5s instantly. The only thing that truly matters is your power number, which does not even make you powerful at all, given activity difficulty deltas that cap you. It does not take any remote amount of skill to clear these missions endlessly for these upgrades, it just takes way, way too much time, so much time that I cannot imagine 95% of players will believe it's worth the investment. There are things that can be done. Bonus loot can be handed out to other activities at certain times to encourage diversity of play, for instance. But it's the entire system that's broken. Grinding to simply hit a cutoff threshold that is the single barrier between you and the loot you want feels awful. This concept needs a complete overhaul if it doesn't want to burn out the vast majority of the playerbase a month into launch. It's that urgent. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Newsweek
9 hours ago
- Newsweek
Fury as Writer's Mom Decides To Become an 'Author'—but There's a Twist
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A Reddit post has ignited fierce debate online after a user expressed frustration that their mother wrote an entire book using AI—and is now calling herself an "author." The post, made by /u/Royal-Average8115 in the subreddit "Mildly Infuriating," quickly gained traction with more than 7,700 upvotes. According to the poster, it all began when their mom started using ChatGPT to write polished posts for her LinkedIn profile. "At first it was just for her LinkedIn and she posted it there," they wrote. "It got thousands of views, people are commenting and reposting and they're all talking about how insightful the posts are but really the words are not her own not in the slightest, not even the idea is hers." Newsweek has contacted to /u/Royal-Average8115 for comment via Reddit. We could not verify the details of the case. At first, the poster tolerated it, believing someone would eventually call it out. According to the poster, only one person did, and their mother chose to ignore it. Things escalated when she decided to publish an AI-written eBook on Amazon. The poster wrote that their mom justified the decision by saying "everyone uses AI" and insisting that it was perfectly acceptable. "Now she's calling herself an author," the poster added. "You can't be author if AI is the writer!!" What especially rankled the poster was that their mother planned to continue using AI to generate more content for future books, seeking to build a self-sustaining writing business. As a lifelong writer, the poster described the situation as deeply frustrating. They recounted their own creative struggles—such as pacing a room to perfect character dialogue or losing pages of hard-won inspiration—and found it disheartening that their mother could simply prompt a chatbot and claim the title of "author" without putting in the same effort. The situation has sparked a broader discussion about AI's role in publishing and whether using tools such as ChatGPT undermines the integrity of authorship. A stock image of someone typing on a laptop. A stock image of someone typing on a laptop. Antonio_Diaz/iStock / Getty Images Plus Author Chris Mannino weighed in with Newsweek, saying the flood of AI-generated books "saturates and dilutes an already heavily oversaturated market and cheapens the work of those of us who put in hours and years of effort." "That said, I do use AI as a tool in my fundraising job, and I also use AI as a tool for marketing my books. Trying to pretend AI doesn't exist is foolish, but there are definite lines," he said. Maryann Karinch, a co-author of How to Spot a Liar and publisher at Armin Lear Press, also voiced concern. "I see AI as a great help in organizing material and exploring alternate ways of phrasing something—not 'creating.' As long as the material is identified as AI generated, I have no problem with it being available for sale, but my company would never publish it," she told Newsweek. Karinch said she ran submissions through AI and plagiarism detectors. In one case, she returned a section of a manuscript to an author after discovering 74 percent of it was AI-generated. The author admitted that the section had come from an AI tool. Colin Cooper, an AI and education strategist, offered a more nuanced take. Cooper, who works globally with schools and startups and also runs a personalized children's book company, drew a comparison between AI and ghostwriting. He argued that if someone has genuine expertise and uses AI as a productivity enhancer—like a calculator or an editor—they shouldn't be discredited. "The ethical dilemma arises not from the use of AI but from its misuse," Cooper told Newsweek. The real concern, he added, lies with "overnight experts" who pump out AI-generated content on topics they barely understand while posing as authorities. In his view, authorship in the AI era should be defined by "expertise, intent, and transparency—not just keystrokes." Meanwhile, commenters across Reddit were equally outraged. "I see c**p like this all the time on LinkedIn," one user wrote. "People posting these long, clearly AI-written commentaries. What annoys me even more is that the people commenting on them seem like bots too?" Another added: "Jokes aside, I really dislike what AI is doing to art. The same thing is happening with music. There was a case with a moderately popular rock band (~1M monthly listeners on Spotify) that was AI generated." One user shared their own workplace experience, writing: "AI is being used where I work, in accounting, to make some tasks easier by suggesting options." They went on to say they believed AI-generated work should come with clear labeling. "I think there should be an 'AI generated' label on everything that is published that way," the user wrote, adding, "There need to be a lot more regulations." Do you have any viral videos or pictures that you want to share? We want to see the best ones! Send them in to life@ and they could appear on our site.
