Jerod Harris via Vox Media
- Ex-Twitter executive Yoel Roth told the company's new CEO she should be "worried."
- Roth fled his home last year after Elon Musk promoted the "Twitter Files" and misrepresented Roth's past academic writing.
- In a tense interview after Roth's comments, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said she feels "well protected."
Former Twitter executive Yoel Roth had some words of caution for X CEO Linda Yaccarino on Wednesday.
"If not for yourself, for your family, for your friends for those that you love, be worried," Roth said when he was asked to give Yaccarino advice on working with Elon Musk at X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. "You should be worried. I wish I had been more worried."
Roth stayed at Twitter as the head of trust and safety after Musk took the company private, but resigned about two weeks after the billionaire's takeover. Yaccarino joined the company as CEO in June, several months after Roth left the company.
When Musk first began running Twitter, he publicly defended Roth initially against accusations of left-wing bias, saying he had "high integrity." But less than a month after Roth resigned, Musk baselessly implied in more than one tweet that the former Twitter executive had a permissive view of pedophilia, misrepresenting his past academic writing.
"Look at what your boss did to me," Roth said on Wednesday night during an interview with Kara Swisher at the Code Conference. "It happened to me. It happened after he sang my praises publicly. It happened after I didn't attack him. I didn't attack the company. And then he did that to me."
Roth has said he was forced to flee his home after Musk's comments and the release of the "Twitter Files." The former executive told Swisher he'd had to sell his house and live in a temporary apartment due to the death threats he received after he was doxxed.
Roth appeared to be a last-minute addition to the Code Conference. Swisher said the ex-Twitter staffer had filled in for GM CEO Mary Barra who had been unable to attend the conference. When Yaccarino took the stage only a few hours after Roth, she called his appearance "unexpected" during a tense interview with CNBC's Julia Boorstin.
"I think many people in this room were not fully prepared for me to still come out on the stage, but here we are," Yaccarino said, adding that she has never met Roth and the two worked for very different companies.
"The company that was described about an hour ago no longer exists," Yaccarino said.
Swisher later said in a post on X that Yaccarino had been alerted to Roth's interview earlier in the day and had decided to schedule her interview after the former Twitter staffer in order to have the "last word."
The X CEO said she feels "well protected" at the social media company when it comes to her personal well-being despite Roth's concerns and added that the stress she faces is an issue that most CEOs encounter. In an earlier series of interview with Financial Times that were released on Wednesday, Yaccarino admitted to feeling "the pressure and the burden of the intense and relentless public scrutiny."
A spokesperson for X did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.