Ella Irwin, after less than seven months as head of trust and safety at Elon Musk’s Twitter, has resigned from the company.
Irwin confirmed to Reuters that she resigned but did not provide a reason for her exit. Earlier, Fortune reported that Irwin’s Slack account at Twitter appeared to have been deactivated. Neither Irwin nor Musk have publicly tweeted about her departure. An email to Twitter’s press account requesting comment returned an autoreply with a poop emoji. Attempts to contact Irwin were unsuccessful.
As Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Irwin oversaw enforcement of its content moderation policies. Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist,” has eased some restrictions in Twitter’s content policies — and reinstated thousands of previously banned accounts. Third-party groups have criticized Twitter for apparent increases in instances of hate speech and lax policy enforcement since Musk assumed control; Musk has previously denied that an increase in hate speech on Twitter.
Irwin had assumed the role in November 2022, after previous head of trust and safety Yoel Roth quit. In a Nov. 18 op-ed in the New York Times, Roth explained that Musk’s unilateral decision-making as Twitter’s CEO led to his decision to quit. “In appointing himself ‘chief twit,’ Mr. Musk has made clear that at the end of the day, he’ll be the one calling the shots,” Roth wrote. “It was for this reason that I chose to leave the company: A Twitter whose policies are defined by edict has little need for a trust and safety function dedicated to its principled development.”
Irwin joined Twitter in June 2022, before Musk closed the acquisition of the company in October. Previously she was VP of product, consumer trust at communications software company Twilio, and before that was Amazon’s GM of marketplace abuse product management. Irwin also worked at Google, eHarmony, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.
On Thursday, the CEO of the Daily Wire had complained that Twitter had canceled a deal to premiere its “gender ideology movement” documentary “What Is a Woman?” over instances of misgendering in the film, and that he was told by Twitter that the platform would limit its reach under the company’s hateful conduct policy. Musk responded that the decision was “a mistake by many people at Twitter” and said the Daily Wire’s film was “definitely allowed.”
Musk last month announced that he hired Linda Yaccarino, formerly NBCUniversal’s top ad sales exec, as CEO of Twitter. “Linda will operate the company and I will build products,” Musk said in a CNBC interview. Yaccarino is expected to start at Twitter later this month.
UPDATE, 11 a.m. PT: A.J. Brown, Twitter’s head of brand safety and ad quality, has also quit, the Wall Street Journal reported. Brown had reported to Irwin.
