Between Elon Musk’s response to an antisemitic post and his recent lawsuit with the media watchdog Media Matters, X has been making even more headlines than usual. That’s why on Tuesday night Jimmy Kimmel thought he’d check in on the one woman bearing the brunt of this bad press: X CEO Linda Yaccarino.
“Elon is outspoken. But I can fix him. I just have to shrink myself down and hide under a chef hat and just kind of control everything he does,” Blaire Erskine (as Yaccarino) said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
As Kimmel asked this fake Yaccarino more questions, she became more and more frenzied.
“Everything’s going great. I don’t know what you’re talking about, everything’s going great,” Erskine told Kimmel while pouring herself a full glass of wine. When asked why she was drinking so much wine, she curtly responded, “I already drank all the vodka.”
When asked if she was worried that Musk’s hateful posts may impact X as a business, Erskine’s Yaccarino pretended that Kimmel asked her if a hotdog was a sandwich while eating cake with her hands. The segment concluded with Erskine screaming repeatedly, ripping her laptop in two and pummeling the phones on her desk with a mallet.
This latest round of social media drama started last Wednesday when Musk endorsed an antisemetic conspiracy theory on his platform. In response to one user’s post about the “great replacement theory” — a white nationalist, far right conspiracy theory that posits white populations are being “replaced” by non-white people — Musk responded, “You have said the actual truth.” This theory has been cited by several individuals who committed mass murder, and the Anti-Defamation League has a whole section on its site breaking down its antisemetic roots.
The following day, Media Matters released a report that accused X of placing brand ads next to pro-Hitler and white nationalist accounts. Shortly after the report was released several high-profile corporations boycotted X including entertainment companies Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony and Lionsgate. IBM and Apple also suspending their ads on the platform.
This report also led to Musk filing a lawsuit against Media Matters on Monday. The suit claims the media watchdog organization “knowingly and maliciously” misrepresented the amount of antisemitic content on the site formerly known as Twitter.
“Not a single authentic user on X saw IBM’s, Comcast’s, or Oracle’s ads next to the content in Media Matters’ article,” Yaccarino wrote in a post on X. “Only 2 users saw Apple’s ad next to the content, at least one of which was Media Matters. Data wins over manipulation or allegations.”
As for Yaccarino, she is being pressured to step down from her position as CEO of X by brand chiefs and marketing executives. According to a report from Axios, several professionals want her to leave the company “before her reputation is damaged.”
