Good morning, Broadsheet readers! A succession battle grips Esteé Lauder, GM CEO Mary Barra’s robotaxi investment is at a crossroads as Cruise’s CEO exits, and Linda Yaccarino is sticking by Elon Musk and X. Have a wonderful Wednesday!
– Stand by X. Before Linda Yaccarino became the CEO of Twitter (now X) in June, she had a well-respected career in the advertising industry. She worked her way up the ladder at Turner over two decades before climbing to the top at NBCUniversal, where she was chairman for global advertising and partnerships.
When she accepted the X CEO job—one that came with Elon Musk’s unorthodox way of running the platform, from making spur-of-the-moment decisions and policy changes to lashing out at critics—her choice both calmed some people worried about Musk’s leadership and baffled others curious about why she’d take such a risk.
Now, the latter camp has come out in full force. It all escalated last week, when Musk responded to a tweet that said that Jews encouraged “hatred against whites.” “You have said the actual truth,” Musk wrote on X in response to the tweet. Jewish groups (and the White House) claim that the post espoused the antisemitic “replacement theory” that “Jews have organized nonwhite immigrants to replace the white race,” which was the ideology of the mass shooter at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. Musk said attempts to label him an antisemite are “bogus.”
At the same time, a Media Matters report found that ads ran next to “pro-Nazi” content on the platform. Musk threatened to sue the media watchdog group—and X filed a defamation lawsuit yesterday. Media Matters says it stands behind its reporting.
Brands fled the platform in even greater numbers than usual. IBM, Apple, Walt Disney, Comcast, and Warner Bros. were among the businesses to suspend advertising.
Many ad execs are now reaching out to Yaccarino personally, advising her to leave her job. Lou Paskalis, CEO of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory and former head of global media at Bank of America, told Axios that he texted Yaccarino to tell her to resign “before her reputation is damaged.”
The push came while Yaccarino attended her daughter’s wedding over the weekend. And indeed, the entire situation is a family affair. Yaccarino’s son, Matt Madrazo, is reportedly leading X’s effort to bring back political advertising, Semafor reported.
Yaccarino, however, has stood by her employer. When her peers have reached out over the past several days, she’s told them that she “believes in X’s mission and its employees,” according to the Financial Times. She echoed that sentiment in a town hall with employees yesterday, Fortune‘s Kylie Robison reported.
Of course, the antisemitic tweet scandal is just the worst and the latest in a long line of questionable decisions since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022—more than double what the company is valued at today. Yaccarino may be sticking by her boss, but advertisers aren’t. “The issue is no longer about content adjacencies or content moderation,” Paskalis said. “It’s simply that the owner is not someone marketers can do business with.”
X isn’t the only Elon Musk business under fire. Fortune‘s new digital package on Elon Musk’s universe of companies digs into X but also covers his other ventures, like his ChatGPT competitor and trouble at the Boring Co.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- At a crossroads. Kyle Vogt’s surprise exit as CEO of robotaxi developer Cruise could prove catastrophic for GM CEO Mary Barra, whose automaker purchased 80% of Cruise last year. Barra must now decide how to proceed with Cruise, whose cars were pulled from operations in San Francisco last month after a pedestrian accident. The firm reported $2 billion in losses for the first nine months of 2023. Fortune
- Behind the cosmetics. Esteé Lauder’s granddaughter Jane Lauder is reportedly a top prospect to take over as CEO of the cosmetics company from Lauder protégé and longtime chief executive Fabrizio Freda (who currently has no plans to leave). Jane Lauder's marketing experience at Origins and Clinique may be what the cosmetics company needs as it struggles in the social media era and embarks on a complicated succession plan in the Lauder family. The company has lost $45 billion in shareholder value this year as its stock has sunk 50%. Wall Street Journal
- One market for all. Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, announced a new push for a unified stock exchange on the continent and Securities and Exchange Commission equivalent to foster a new generation of startups and green investments. Europe’s financial markets are currently supervised by the European Securities and Markets Authority in Paris, an organization Lagarde thinks can be scaled and built upon to create a single capital market for the continent. Financial Times
- Art history. Mariët Westermann will be the first woman to lead the museum group behind New York's Guggenheim art museum. She has recently served as vice chancellor of NYU Abu Dhabi and takes over as the group works to open a Guggenheim outpost in Abu Dhabi. New York Times
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Advent International appointed Tricia Rothschild as an operating partner.
ON MY RADAR
Joyce Carol Oates’s relentless, prolific search for a self The New Yorker
The women who saw 9/11 coming The Atlantic
Why are millennials still attached to American Girl? The New Yorker
PARTING WORDS
"Don’t take things too seriously and realize that hard moments are moments. You get through them."
—Tennis star Venus Williams on how she takes care of her mental health
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