X's tumultuous journey under Elon Musk

(Reuters) -The CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, said on Wednesday she would step down from the role in a surprise move, ending her tenure at the Elon Musk-owned social media platform that has faced several controversies and challenges including a mass exodus of advertisers from the site.

Yaccarino was tasked with boosting advertising revenue and alleviating the company's heavy debt load. She helped implement new features such as rolling out a new video tab and expanding fact-checking via X's community notes. 

X was on track to report its first year of advertising revenue growth this year since its acquisition in 2022, data from research firm Emarketer showed in March, as advertisers returned to the platform amid Musk's growing political influence.

Here is a timeline of events that shaped the platform after Musk announced his bid for X: 

April 2022- Musk made an offer for X, then known as Twitter, for $43 billion in cash.

May 2022- Musk pauses the deal, citing pending details on spam and fake accounts.

July 2022- Musk terminates the deal, citing material breach of multiple provisions of the agreement.

July 2022- Twitter sues Musk for violating his deal, asking a Delaware court to order him to complete the merger. 

October 2022- Musk completes the deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion.

November 2022- The company announces mass layoffs, targeting teams responsible for communications, content curation, human rights and machine learning ethics among others.

May 2023- Musk names former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino as Twitter's new CEO, as the company tries to reverse a plunge in ad revenue.

July 2023- Musk renames Twitter as X and unveils a new logo, underscoring a focus on building an "everything app" and marking an end to the iconic blue bird that became synonymous with the platform after 17 years. 

November 2023- Musk endorses an antisemitic post on X that falsely claimed members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred against white people, kicking off a mass exodus of advertisers from the platform. 

August 2024- X files an antitrust lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and several major companies, accusing them of unlawfully conspiring to boycott the site and causing it to lose revenue.

March 2025- Musk's xAI acquires X in an all-stock deal that values X at $33 billion.

July 2025- Yaccarino stepped down as X CEO without giving a specific reason for her decision.

(Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala, Arsheeya Bajwa and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)