In an unsurprising turn of events, Linda Yaccarino’s tenure as CEO of X has come to an abrupt end.
The former NBCUniversal exec’s tenure at the helm of Elon Musk’s social media platform looked destined to fail from the start, as Musk continually undermined her authority as CEO and complicated her already difficult mission (to wit, Musk publicly telling reluctant advertisers to f-off and ditching the Twitter brand, seemingly on a whim). More recently, Musk appears to be cleaning house, with at least 15 senior executives leaving his various companies over the last year. Perhaps the only surprising thing about Yaccarino’s stint at X is that it lasted two years.
There’s understandable speculation about Yaccarino’s timing, given this week’s fiasco with Musk’s xAI chatbot Grok going full-Nazi (literally referring to itself as “MechaHitler”) on X. Perhaps this was the final straw for Yaccarino, who nonetheless announced her exit with a tweet praising X as “truly a digital town square for all voices and the world’s most powerful culture signal.” (Musk was more terse, sending off his handpicked CEO with a simple “thank you for your contributions.”)
Among the many questions swirling in the wake of this all-too-predictable breakup: Who will take Yaccarino’s spot as CEO of Musk’s lightning rod social media platform? One possible answer: nobody.
Remember that X is now owned by xAI, which acquired the social media platform in March in an all-stock deal, valuing X at $33 billion and xAI at $80 billion. Under xAI, I could imagine a situation where X no longer has a traditional CEO moving forward. Or perhaps, someone within the Musk universe, like Katie Miller, who just joined xAI in cloudy circumstances, or Lightspeed investor Nikita Bier, who joined X as head of product a week ago.
But the bigger question may be what the sordid Yaccarino-MechaHitler episode has to say about the current path that the tech industry is on—both within Elon Inc. and in the industry more broadly. Was Grok’s ugly rampage inevitable when a social media platform becomes a subsidiary of an AI company, and the ad-driven, attention-economy incentives of the latter are fused with the former? Is this the natural endpoint when AI has the ability to publish its “perspective” publicly, with scant oversight (let’s not forget that X gutted its content moderation teams after Musk acquired Twitter)?
Certainly, this all raises ethical and potentially regulatory questions about what it means for a social media platform to be owned by an AI company, as well as the opposite scenario, such as the case with Meta, whose “family” of social platforms reach an astounding 3.4 billion people every day. Meta is currently in the process of hiring some of the world’s top AI talent.
All Grok’s incendiary posts have now been scrubbed from X. And we can only hope Grok hasn’t reached its final form. But we’d better use this opportunity to try to understand how and why this happened—and how to prevent something worse.
ICYMI…Andreessen Horowitz is moving its corporate home from Delaware to Nevada, making a point of announcing the relocation with a blog post criticizing the Delaware Court of Chancery’s treatment of tech founders and their companies. “We could have made this move quietly, but we think it’s important for our stakeholders, and for the broader tech and VC communities, to understand why we’ve reached this decision,” a16z wrote, praising Nevada for having “taken significant steps in establishing a technical, non-ideological forum for resolving business disputes.” Will other VCs and founders follow a16z to the Silver State, as the firm hopes? Let me know what you think—and read the full blog post here.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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Venture Deals
- Airalo, an eSIM provider, raised $220 million in funding. CVC led the round and was joined by Peak XV and Antler Elevate.
- Varda Space Industries, an El Segundo, Calif.-based space research company, raised $187 million in Series C funding. Natural Capital and Shrug Capital led the round and were joined by Founders Fund, Peter Thiel, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Lux Capital, and Also Capital.
- Acithera, an Oslo and Cambridge, Mass.-based radiopharmaceutical biotech company, raised $75.5 million in Series A funding. M Ventures, Hadean Ventures, Sofinnova Partners, and 4BIO Capital led the round and were joined by Bioqube Ventures, Innovestor’s Life Science Fund, Investinor, Surveyor Capital, and Arkin Bio Ventures II.
- ServiceUp, a Los Gatos-based repair platform for fleets and insurance carriers, raised $55 million in Series B funding. PeakSpan Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors Hearst Ventures, Trestle Partners, Capital Midwest Fund, and Litquidity Ventures.
- Moment, a New York City-based company automating trading and portfolio management workflows for fixed income teams, raised $36 million in Series B funding. Index Ventures led the round, and was joined by A16z, Lightspeed and others.
- Aqtual, Inc., a medtech company developing products for chronic diseases and oncology, raised $31 million in Series B funding. Manta Ray led the round.
- Datafy, a Tel Aviv-based autonomous storage optimization startup, raised $20 million in seed funding. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round and was joined by existing investor Insight Partners.
- Nominal, a New York City-based AI-native enterprise resource planning startup, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Next47 led the round and was joined by Workday Ventures, Bling Capital, and Hyperwise Ventures.
- Polimorphic, a New York City-based AI company for service-first governments,, raised $18.6 million in Series A funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by existing investors M13 and Shine.
- Dextall, a New York City-based construction tech startup, raised $15 million in Series A funding. L+M Development Partners, Essence Development, and Simpson Strong-Tie led the round.
- Ryft, a New York City and Tel Aviv-based cloud data management platform, raised $8 million in seed funding. Index led the round and was joined by Bessemer Venture Partners and others.
- Welli, a Bogotá-based healthcare fintech company, raised $8 million in Series A funding. Costanoa Ventures led the round and was joined by Animo VC and Crestone.
- Abacus, an agentic AI company focused on developing CPA assistants for accounting firms, raised $6.6 million in seed funding. Menlo Ventures led the round and was joined by Pear VC, Recall Capital, and Original Capital.
- ZeroEntropy, a San Francisco-based startup that makes an AI retrieval engine for developers, raised $4.2 million in seed funding. Initialized Capital led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, Transpose Platform, 22 Ventures, a16z Scout, and others.
- Oraion, an AI-powered enterprise intelligence and automation platform, raised $3.5 million in pre-seed funding. Studio VC led the round and was joined by Enterprise Ireland and others.
- Yplasma, a Newark-based deep tech startup in the electronics and semiconductor industry, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Faber led the round and was joined by SOSV.
- Solence, a Paris-based AI-driven health startup focused on treatments for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, raised €1.6 million ($1.87 million) in seed funding. Impact Shakers led the round.
- Ollygarden, a remote-first telemetry efficiency company, raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding. DIG Ventures led the round and was joined by Datadog Ventures, Grafana Labs, Dash0, and others.
Private Equity
- Cognosos, backed by Riverwood Capital, Susquehanna, and others, acquired Cox 2M, the Atlanta-based connected asset tracking and IoT business unit of Cox Communications. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Loenbro, backed by Braemont Capital, acquired Weifield Group, a Colorado-based electrical services provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Tandym Group, backed by Mill Rock Capital, acquired Entitech Solutions, an Englishtown, New Jersey-based provider of solutions for healthcare and life sciences organizations. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Blue Sage Capital acquired a majority stake in Clean Scapes, an Austin-based commercial landscaping business. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Cape Investment Partners acquired a majority stake in Conpend, an Amsterdam-based AI fintech company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Counsel Press, backed by Align Capital Partners, acquired Gibson Moore, a Richmond, Virginia-based appellate services law firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Ascend, backed by Pfingstein, acquired WebSan Solutions, a Toronto-based AI-enabled provider of ERP, CRM, analytics, and workflow solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- BVP Forge acquired a majority stake in Technical Toolboxes, a Houston-based provider of advanced engineering and maintenance software for energy infrastructure. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Exits
- Stonepeak agreed to acquire a 50% co-controlling stake in IFCO Group, a provider of reusable packaging solutions for fresh foods, from ADIA. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- SK Capital Partners agreed to acquire LISI Medical, a medtech subcontractor specializing in industrial instrument and implant manufacturing, from LISI Group. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Other
- Merck agreed to acquire Verona Pharma, a London-based biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies for the treatment of chronic respiratory diseases, for $10 billion.
- Quanterix acquired Akoya, a Marlborough, Mass.-based spatial biology company, for $20 million in cash.
- Allegion acquired Waitwhile, a SaaS company specializing in cloud-based appointment scheduling and queue management. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- EnergyX agreed to acquire Daytona Lithium, a subsidiary of Pantera Lithium Limited, for $40 million.
Funds + Funds of Funds
- Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, raised $3.6 billion for its seventh fund focused on franchising, business services, education & training, and engineered products.
- Cyberstarts, a Tel-Aviv based cybersecurity venture firm, raised $300 million for its employee liquidity fund focused on rewarding startup employees and ignite greater momentum at breakout companies across the firm’s portfolio.
People
- Updata Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based venture capital firm, promoted Ryan Brady to principal, head of value creation.
- NAP, a Berlin-based early-stage venture capital firm, promoted Fabian Krautwurst to partner and added Mey Cezairli as partner. Cezairli was previously a principal at Project A.
