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Once touted as a potential successor to CEO Linda Yaccarino, the advertising executive at X Inc. has left Elon Musk’s social media platform after just 10 months, becoming the billionaire’s latest departure from the executive ranks.
John Nitti, who joined X in January as global head of revenue operations and advertising innovation, left the company on Friday, according to people familiar with the matter.
Yaccarino, who served as chief executive for two years, resigned in July. Since then, her duties have been divided among several leaders, including Angela Zepeda, the company’s global head of marketing, and Nitti, who was considered a possible candidate for the CEO position by industry insiders.
His departure comes as Musk battles a wave of senior executive departures across the industry, with his artificial intelligence startup xAI taking over in March.
Mike Liberatore, xAI’s chief financial officer, also resigned in the summer after three months on the job, and general counsel Robert Keel also resigned shortly after.
In early October, Mahmoud Reza Banki, X’s chief financial officer, announced he would step down after less than a year in the job, a departure first reported by the Financial Times.
The departures reflect frustration among some executives with Mr. Musk’s sudden change in strategy and difficulty implementing their own goals given his billionaire boss’s pragmatic approach.
Advertising leaders at Company X have long faced demands from Mr. Musk to boost profits. The pressure is mounting as he spends billions of dollars on infrastructure and chips in the race to develop superhuman AI that competes with the likes of OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind.
At the same time, advertisers have expressed displeasure with Mr. Musk’s decision to relax content moderation standards due to his “free speech” ideals and his “fuck you” treatment of marketers who don’t agree with his approach.
Some brands have been persuaded to return, and xAI has recently struck media partnerships with companies such as Disney. The company also told brands that their use of xAI’s AI technology was improving their advertising metrics, according to an email seen by the FT.
But some advertisers have privately complained that they were pressured to spend with X after it sued several brands, including Shell and Pinterest, for allegedly conducting an “illegal boycott” of the platform, which they deny.
Mr. Nitti, a former Verizon executive, was among sales leaders dissatisfied with Mr. Musk’s approach to advertising, one person said.
In the first half of this year, Musk was preoccupied with his role in Donald Trump’s administration, which ended in conflict with the US president over the summer.
Since then, he has started making unilateral advertising decisions without consulting advertising industry leaders, two people familiar with the matter said. This included banning hashtags from advertising on X, which frustrated some advertisers, one of the people said.
xAI and X also recently appointed new leaders. Earlier this month, Anthony Armstrong, the former Morgan Stanley banker who advised Musk on his $44 billion acquisition of X, was named xAI’s CFO.
X did not respond to requests for comment.
