• Linda Yaccarino stepped down as the CEO of X in July, after two years in the role.
• In August, she took a job as CEO of eMed Population Health, a telehealth company.
• Yaccarino has had a long career in advertising, from her early days as an intern at NBCU.

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, to leading a telehealth company, 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.

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 has a new job in the weight-loss industry.

Yaccarino said on August 5 that she's becoming the CEO of eMed Population Health, a telehealth company that focuses on weight-loss drugs called GLP-1s. A press release from the Miami-based company called Yaccarino's hiring a "game changing moment" and said that she "turned around one of the most complex digital platforms in the world."

Yaccarino announced the news on her X account, too, saying that she is "energized by the opportunity to help lead what could become the most impactful health initiative of our time."

Grace Kay contributed to reporting.

• Linda Yaccarino was named CEO of EMed, a telehealth company, a month after leaving X.
• Yaccarino's tenure at X was turbulent and involved doing a lot of damage control for Elon Musk.
• The new role could help her bolster her CEO chops in a company outside the media world.

It didn't take Linda Yaccarino long to get a new job after leaving Elon Musk's X, where she was CEO.

On Tuesday, just a month after exiting her high-profile job, she was named CEO of EMed, a telehealth startup that sells weight-loss drugs.

It might seem like a right turn for an executive who's made her name selling advertising for big-name companies. Before X, Yaccarino was the head of ad sales for NBCUniversal.

But if you look closely, it's not that surprising. Yaccarino told confidants for years before taking the X job that she wanted to be CEO of a company. And despite Yaccarino being X's CEO, Musk continued to manage major parts of the company, including product design and technology. She hadn't yet gotten a full shot.

After X, landing atop a media company might have been an uphill climb after a turbulent tenure that included the social-media company suing several prominent advertisers, including Nestlé, Colgate, and Shell.

EMed, on the other hand, gives her a chance to establish her CEO bona fides outside the blast radius of Musk.

"She finally gets to be a true CEO that I don't think Elon let her be. It's an opportunity to rehabilitate her reputation," said Lou Paskalis, a longtime ad industry figure who's been close to Yaccarino.

For EMed, it's a chance for a little-known company to leverage Yaccarino's connections with business leaders and CEOs as it looks to expand.

"They're capitalizing on those relationships," Paskalis said.

EMed cited Yaccarino's time at X as an asset in announcing her hire, calling her a "hands-on visionary" whose experience will help it expand to develop employer and government partnerships.

"Her ability to forge game-changing partnerships and navigate complex markets will position the company to become the definitive global leader in population health solutions," the company said in a statement.

Yaccarino, for her part, said in the statement that she saw an "opportunity to combine technology, lifestyle, and data in a new powerful way through the digital channels that impact consumers directly in ways that have never been done before."

When Musk hired Yaccarino at X, many in the industry had high hopes for her success, given her strong relationships with the ad community. Instead, she had to spend a lot of time doing damage control for Musk, as Business Insider previously reported.

The EMed role might just be Yaccarino's chance to get what she wanted all along.