In May 2023, when Linda Yaccarino, an NBC advertising executive, joined what was then still known as Twitter, she was given a tall order: repair the company’s relationship with advertisers after a chaotic year of being owned by Elon Musk. But just weeks after she became CEO, Musk posted an antisemitic tweet that drove away major brands like Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate and Warner Bros Discovery to pause their advertising on the platform. Musk delivered an apology for the tweet later at a conference – which he called the worst post he’s ever done – but it came with a message to advertisers, specifically the Disney CEO Bob Iger: “Go fuck yourselves”. Yaccarino was in the audience of the conference.

“I don’t want them to advertise,” he said. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money, go fuck yourself. Go. Fuck. Yourself,” he said. “Is that clear? Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience, that’s how I feel.”

In the two years since, Yaccarino has had to contend with the unpredictability of Musk, ongoing content moderation and hate speech issues on the platform, increasingly strained relationships with advertisers and widespread backlash her boss received for his role in Donald Trump’s administration. Her response in some cases was to remain silent; in others, she chose to defend the company. Through it all, however, experts say it was clear Yaccarino was the chief executive in title only.

“The reality is that Elon Musk is and always has been at the helm of X,” said Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester VP. “It was clear from the start that she was being set up to fail by a limited scope as the company’s chief executive. Her background and actual authority positioned her more as the company’s chief advertising officer, rather than its CEO.”

Even in her de facto role as a chief advertising officer, Musk’s incessant posting, impulsive decision making and obsession with X and other platforms becoming too “woke” posed huge obstacles for Yaccarino.

“The only thing that’s surprising about Linda Yaccarino’s resignation is that it didn’t come sooner,” said Proulx.

This week alone, Grok, the AI chatbot integrated with X, posted several antisemitic remarks, including some praising Hitler, after the company included new guidelines for the chatbot. In guidelines xAI published, Grok had been instructed not to “shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated”. xAI removed that guideline from its code on Tuesday evening.

Yaccarino’s tenure as CEO of X was not only bookended with antisemitism scandals – Musk’s and Grok’s offensive tweets – but was also punctuated with several accusations of antisemitism against her boss throughout her short stint. In 2023, the non-profit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate published a report on the prevalence of hate speech, both antisemitic and otherwise, on X as well as the lack of moderation. The company’s response was to sue the organization; the suit was ultimately dismissed. Similarly, the non-profit Media Matters for America highlighted the appearance of pro-Nazi tweets alongside branded advertisements in a report that preceded a mass advertiser exodus from the social network. X sued Media Matters.

Most notably, Musk was accused of doing back-to-back Nazi salutes at a Trump inauguration rally at the start of 2025. Musk brushed aside the allegations that it was a Nazi salute and posted several Nazi puns on X. At the time, Yaccarino provided no additional comment, but posted a laughing face emoji in response to Musk’s jokes. Musk’s salute and the ensuing backlash was one of several moments that solidified the overall rightward shift of the social network as droves of users began to flock to alternative platforms like Bluesky and even Reddit communities began banning X links.

Promises of an X revitalization

When Yaccarino joined X, she set about courting celebrities and partnerships to reinvigorate the social network’s brand and repair relationships that Musk’s contentious takeover had damaged. Musk had long talked of making X into an “everything app” that would integrate payments, AI, messaging, livestreaming, and other new features alongside the social network’s public posting, another task given to Yaccarino.

Yaccarino led a delegation of executives, including Musk himself, to meet with industry leaders at the Cannes Lions festival in 2023, and began seeking media figures who could feature on the platform.

One of Yaccarino’s moves toward making the platform into what she described as a “global town square” was reaching out to the former CNN host Don Lemon to start a show on X, much as the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson had agreed to put his content on site. Lemon’s first interview for the platform was with Musk, in what was intended to be a showcase of how X was shifting and bringing in big-name creators. The plan backfired after Lemon’s interview with Musk grew heated over questions about the billionaire’s drug use, which was quickly followed by Musk telling Lemon’s agent that his contract was canceled. Future shows with big-name creators never materialized.

In the ensuing two years, rather than become a destination for mainstream talent, a streaming powerhouse or the “everything app” that Yaccarino promoted, X has largely become a megaphone for Musk to air his grievances, boost and then feud with Trump, and promote his companies. Far-right influencers, porn spambots and meme accounts proliferate, while many media outlets have deprioritized the platform or left it altogether. Misinformation and extremism are rampant, sometimes coming from Musk himself.

The day before Yaccarino resigned, X became involved in a scandal that epitomized much of what the platform has become. Musk had recently posted that he would be reconfiguring xAI’s chatbot, Grok, because he did not agree with the responses it was generating. On Tuesday, users noticed that the chatbot had begun to reply to queries with blatantly antisemitic posts praising Nazi ideology. A flood of users began posting more screenshots of Grok posting rape fantasies, identifying itself as “MechaHitler” and promoting conspiracies before the company removed the posts.

Incidents like Grok’s foray into Nazism are some of the many reasons Yaccarino’s goal of revitalizing X has sputtered. Although she succeeded in courting a number of major companies to begin advertising again last year, at a time when Musk’s connections to the White House were strongest, the platform’s ad revenues have never reached anywhere near their pre-Musk era, according to research firm Emarketer. The platform also resorted to threats of lawsuits against major companies such as Verizon if they did not buy advertising on the site, according to a Wall Street Journal report that Yaccarino has denied.

After more than two years of Yaccarino running damage control for her boss and the platform’s myriad of issues, Musk issued only a brief statement acknowledging she was stepping down.

“Thank you for your contributions,” Musk responded to Yaccarino’s post announcing her resignation. Minutes later, he began sending replies to other posts about SpaceX, artificial intelligence and how his chatbot became a Nazi.

The last four competitors in the women’s singles tournament at Wimbledon are set as the semifinalists take the court on Thursday. With spots in the championship match on the line, Aryna Sabalenka, Amanda Anisimova, Iga Świątek and Belinda Bencic will take the prestigious Center Court.

All four competitors will try to claim their first Wimbledon title after 2024 winner Barbora Krejčíková fell to Emma Navarro in the third round this year. No. 1 Sabalenka and No. 13 Anisimova will take the court first as the Belarusian looks to notch her 21st career singles title and her first since the Madrid Open in May. An upset for Anisimova means a step toward her fourth career singles title and first at a Grand Slam tournament.

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No. 8 Świątek has been dominant so far in this tournament, winning 10 of 11 sets decisively in search of her 22nd WTA singles title and a sixth major to add to her four French Open titles, plus one US Open win. Switzerland’s unseeded Bencic has scraped her way to the semis in a tournament that has been marred by upsets. Apart from her first-round win over Alycia Parksa, Bencic has navigated a tightly-contested route to the semis, with two of her matches seeing a third set. She upset No. 7 Mirra Andreeva to advance to Thursday, and currently has a WTA ranking of 34.

How to watch the Wimbledon women’s singles semifinals

Date: Thursday, July 10

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Aryna Sabalenka-Amanda Anisimova start time: 8:30 a.m. ET

Belinda Bencic-Iga Świątek time: 9:40 a.m. ET

Location: Center Court | All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, Wimbledon, London

TV channel: ESPN | ESPN+ | Disney+

Follow along with Yahoo Sports for live updates, highlights and more from the Wimbledon women’s singles semifinals:

This article was published on 7/9 and republished on 7/10.

While critic reviews came pouring in yesterday for Superman, now it’s the audience’s turn, the one who will actually determine if the movie is a success or not (and with an estimated $200 million opening weekend, indications are that it will be).

Those audience scores have gone live and as of right now, Superman has set a new audience score record for live-action Superman films and is just under the critic record right now.

Superman currently has an 85% critic score and a sky-high 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. That 95% is above second place, Zack Snyder’s Justice League cut, which has a 92% and an army of Snyder superfans who were certainly going to score it high. Whether you want to consider Justice League a “Superman movie” is up for debate. That’s sort of like considering four Avengers movies “Thor movies” or “Iron Man movies,” and I’m not sure it counts, though it may be the case the audience score dips below that in the future.

I would be surprised if it went down to third place, the original Superman: The Movie starring Christopher Reeve. That’s the film that is currently beating out Superman by a single percent, as overnight Superman dropped from an 86% to an 85% with a few more reviews in. Here’s the overall list, sorted by audience score.

• Superman (2025) – 85% critic, 95% audience
• Justice League (Snyder, 2021) – 71% critic, 92% audience
• Superman: The Movie (1978) – 86% critic, 86% audience
• Superman II (1980) – 88% critic, 76% audience
• Man of Steel (2013) – 57% critic, 75% audience
• Justice League (Whedon, 2017) – 39% critic, 67% audience
• Batman V Superman (2016) – 28% critic, 63% audience
• Superman Returns (2005) – 72% critic, 60% audience
• Superman III (1983) – 31% critic, 23% audience
• Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) – 14% critic, 16% audience

Superman has been a notoriously hard nut to crack, with a rival like Batman or even Wonder Woman generally getting more praise for their films. Even the original stretch of Superman movies ended with two terrible ones, Superman III and Superman IV, despite still starring the excellent Reeve.

As it stands, it’s possible that Superman could regain the critic score record or lose the audience score record as more reviews come in for each. Some critics may not have been invited to early screenings, so more will be coming in. And this is still very early for audiences, given that these are excited initial viewers. But we’ll see. Either way, so far, so good. Very good, in fact.

Update (7/10): Well, good news and bad news 24 hours later here. The critic score for Superman has fallen 1% down to an 84%. That doesn’t change its place among Superman movies, but it knocks it below The Batman and moves it further down James Gunn’s catalog.

The good news is that the audience score for Superman actually went up a percent and is now a 96%. That’s with more than double the ratings we saw yesterday, though yes, the film is not hitting its ultra-wide release until tonight. But it’s still significant that as more reviews rolled in, it’s actually still increasing.

Box office estimates continue to hover around $200 million for its opening weekend, and James Gunn’s statement that the movie didn’t need to hit $700 million to be a success seems like it won’t matter. My question is if it could hit a billion over the long run if word-of-mouth spreads. It’s overall budget was $200 million, so it’s going to hit that instantly, but it needs to also get past marketing and distribution. And there has been a ton of marketing for this movie.

Superman is going to be a big hit, that much is clear already. If audience scores stay anywhere near here, that’s a massive win for the DCU and Gunn, and a killer start to this new era for DC. Now, we will head toward Supergirl, where we will no doubt see a guest appearance from Superman at the very least. It’s not a Gunn production, but he’s been raving about it, so we’ll see how it goes.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy