Elon Musk’s X Announces New Leadership Changes, Reorganizes Trust and Safety Team

A photo illustration of the new Twitter logo in London, on July 24, 2023. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Leadership at Elon Musk’s X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, will be split between the businessman and CEO Linda Yaccarino, according to reports.

X’s product and engineering team will report to Mr. Musk, who recently unveiled the new X logo to replace Twitter’s previous blue bird icon, the company said on July 31, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Ms. Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBC Universal who was named as the new CEO of the platform in May, will oversee all other divisions, including human resources, legal, finance, sales, and operations, according to the outlet.

Other changes announced at X to employees on Monday by Ms. Yaccarino included the search for a new head of brand safety and suitability after A.J. Brown departed the company in June.

Both Mr. Musk and Ms. Yaccarino will also be responsible for overseeing the trust and safety team—which handles content moderation including so-called “hate speech” on the platform—after Ella Irwin resigned from the social media company nearly a year after she joined in June 2022, according to Reuters.

Ms. Yaccarino told employees in an email viewed by the publication that three different leaders at X will oversee various responsibilities within the trust and safety team, including law enforcement operations and threat disruptions. The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify the email.

Linda Yaccarino during 2016 Advertising Week New York in New York City on Sept. 28, 2016. D Dipasupil/Getty Images for Advertising Week New York

‘Hate Speech’ Reach Down

Prior to her resignation, Ms. Irwin had defended both the social media site and Mr. Musk, who had faced criticism amid concerns that the platform’s content moderation policies would be weakened after the billionaire businessman, who has regularly advocated for free speech, purchased it for $43 billion last year.

However, Mr. Musk has vowed to make safety on the platform a priority among employees and the company recently announced the reach of “hate speech” on the site “continues to represent an extremely small fraction of the overall conversation” while the majority of content views are of “healthy” posts.

Despite this, the newly-announced leadership reorganization and changes to the trust and safety team come as the platform faces backlash over its recent decision to reinstate the account of rapper and designer Kanye West roughly eight months after he was suspended from the site for posting comments accused of being anti-Semitic, including a stylized swastika.

At the time of his account suspension, Mr. Musk said Mr. West had violated the platform’s rule against incitement to violence.

The Twitter account of Kanye West is displayed on a mobile phone with a photo of him shown in the background in Washington on Oct. 28, 2022. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

X Sues Research Group

Following Mr. West’s reinstatement, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League condemned the move, calling it “absolutely sickening” that “antisemite” Mr. West was “unsuspended from Twitter/X and given a gold verification check mark. He’s done absolutely nothing to make amends.”

Mr. Musk has not commented on the reinstatement of Mr. West’s account, although a spokesperson for the platform has said that Mr. West gave the company his reassurance that he will not post such language again.

Elsewhere on Monday, Mr. Musk also filed a lawsuit against the research group Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which had investigated “hate speech” on the social media platform, accusing it of making “unsubstantiated and incorrect assertions about the presence of hate speech on X.”

According to the lawsuit, which accuses the CCDH of breach of contract, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, intentional interference with contractual relations, and inducing breach of contract, the group used “flawed methodologies to advance incorrect, misleading narratives.”

“Free expression and platform safety are not at odds. We are proving this every day through innovative enforcement policies that have helped reduce hateful content viewed on the platform,” X said in a blog post announcing the lawsuit. “Today, more than 99.99 percent of post impressions are healthy.”

Responding to the lawsuit, Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the CCDH, told The New York Times that Mr. Musk’s actions “represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research” and claimed that the businessman is attempting to “stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers.”

The Epoch Times has contacted X for further comment.