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X’s advertising chief, once touted as a potential successor to Linda Yaccarino as chief executive, has left Elon Musk’s social media platform after only 10 months, marking the latest departure from the billionaire’s executive ranks.
John Nitti, who joined X in January as its global head of revenue operations and advertising innovation, left the company on Friday, according to people familiar with the matter.
Yaccarino, who was chief executive for two years, resigned in July. Since then, her duties have been split between several leaders including Angela Zepeda, global head of marketing, and Nitti, who was considered a contender for the CEO position by industry insiders.
His departure comes as Musk contends with an ongoing wave of senior exits across the business, which was taken over by his artificial intelligence start-up xAI in March.
Mike Liberatore, who was xAI’s chief financial officer, also quit over the summer after three months in the role, soon followed by its general counsel Robert Keele.
In early October, X’s chief financial officer Mahmoud Reza Banki, announced that he was leaving after less than a year in the role, a departure first reported by the Financial Times.
The churn reflects frustration among some executives with Musk’s sudden changes of strategy, and difficulty executing their own objectives given the hands-on approach of their billionaire boss.
X’s advertising leaders have long faced demands from Musk to boost revenues. That pressure has increased as he spends billions of dollars on infrastructure and chips in the race to develop superhuman AI to compete with the likes of OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind.
At the same time, advertisers have been put off by Musk’s decision to relax content moderation standards, citing his “free speech” ideals, and his response to marketers who disagreed with his approach to “go fuck” themselves.
Certain brands have been persuaded to return, while xAI has recently clinched media partnerships with companies such as Disney. The company has also told brands that its advertising metrics are improving due to its use of xAI’s AI technology, according to an email seen by the FT.
However, some advertisers have complained in private that they felt pressured to spend on X after it sued several brands such as Shell and Pinterest for allegedly undertaking “illegal boycott” of the platform, which they deny.
Nitti, a former Verizon executive, was among the sales leaders who had become frustrated with Musk’s approach to the advertising business, according to one insider.
In the first half of the year, Musk had been distracted by his role in Donald Trump’s administration, which ended over the summer in a falling out with the US president.
Since then, he began making unilateral decisions around advertising without consulting the advertising leadership, according to two people familiar with the matter. This included banning hashtags from advertising on X, one of the people said, which frustrated some advertisers.
xAI and X have also appointed new leadership recently. Earlier this month, Anthony Armstrong, a former Morgan Stanley banker who advised on Musk’s $44bn takeover of X, was named xAI CFO.
X did not respond to a request for comment.
