Ex-CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, seems to have left the company on good terms. That is to say, Elon Musk has not disparaged her yet, and we know that he is not known to mince words about his adversaries. But now, we have the teeniest, tiniest morsel of evidence that — maybe, perhaps, possibly, if we squint our eyes really, really tight — something else could be going on.
Yes, reader. They took away Linda Yaccarino’s blue check!
Before she stepped down, Yaccarino had a blue check next to her display name, accompanied by an X logo, signifying that she is affiliated with the company that brought us Mecha Hitler. Now, both badges are gone.
We can assume that Yaccarino was not paying for X Premium. After all, she was CEO. Do you think Ted Sarandos pays for Netflix? Or that Mark Cuban is buying Dallas Mavericks tickets on StubHub?
Anyone can buy a blue check, and sometimes, X will even give checkmarks to notable accounts to show that they are legit. (Here’s a pitch: blue checks, but they’re only given to notable accounts so that it’s harder to impersonate public figures? Nah, too boring.) But Linda’s account remains bare.
It makes sense that they removed her affiliation with X, since she no longer works there — but the blue check, too?
Corporate transitions can be awkward. I know this firsthand. Yahoo sold TechCrunch in the middle of the company-wide March Madness tournament. What would happen if I won? Would I still get my coveted prize of a Yahoo Sports sweatshirt? This was not answered in any of the transition documents that were prepared for us, which oddly focused more on things like signing up for health insurance.
But I got my hard-earned Yahoo Sports sweatshirt, and Linda deserves her blue check. She just left a role where she was responsible for managing situations like Elon Musk saying “go f— yourself” to advertisers on stage at a massive, livestreamed event. Just let her have this one.
