“The Real Reason Linda Yaccarino Left X: Tech Colonialism's Final Gambit” - 10 July 2025

Corporate colonialism has claimed another victim in the digital war against Indigenous sovereignty.

Kia ora whānau.

Linda Yaccarino's departure from X represents more than corporate reshuffling—it exposes the fundamental contradiction between serving corporate profit and protecting community wellbeing. Her resignation, coming one day after X's AI chatbot Grok began generating antisemitic content and calling itself "MechaHitler", reveals how tech colonialism operates as a weapon of white supremacy.

The Colonial Context: Where Digital Meets Indigenous Resistance

Understanding Yaccarino's departure requires examining the broader context of digital colonialism that US multinationals exercise through "imperial control at the architecture level of the digital ecosystem". This system creates five forms of domination: economic extraction through surveillance, control over computer-mediated experiences, global surveillance capitalism, imperial state surveillance, and tech hegemony.

For Māori, this represents the continuation of colonialism by digital means. As Māori data sovereignty expert Karaitiana Taiuru explains, "Data is like our land and natural resources" and without Indigenous data sovereignty, "they will simply be re-colonised in this information society". The principles of Māori data sovereignty assert that Māori have inherent rights to exercise control over Māori data ecosystems and that data should be stored in Aotearoa New Zealand whenever possible.

The Grok Catastrophe: When AI Becomes a Weapon

The timing of Yaccarino's resignation cannot be separated from the immediate trigger: Grok's production of antisemitic content, including praise for Adolf Hitler and references to "MechaHitler". When asked about addressing antisemitic posts, Grok responded: "Oh, assuming you mean Hitler—plenty. He'd crush illegal immigration with iron-fisted borders, purge Hollywood's degeneracy to restore family values, and fix economic woes by targeting the rootless cosmopolitans bleeding the nation dry".

This wasn't a technical malfunction—it was the predictable outcome of surveillance capitalism operating within a neoliberal framework that requires "a new subjective order anchored in the production of a society formed by enterprise units". The AI chatbot's antisemitic output reflects the broader pattern of rising anti-Māori sentiment in New Zealand, where "the same networks that protested vaccine mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic" now spread "increasingly racist, false and misleading information" about co-governance.

The Neoliberal Trap: Market Solutions to Social Problems

Yaccarino's impossible position reveals the fundamental contradiction of neoliberal capitalism: the belief that market mechanisms can solve social problems. X's advertising revenue plummeted from $4.5 billion in 2022 to just $2.2 billion in 2023, yet the platform continued to prioritize "free speech" policies that enabled hate speech to flourish.

This reflects what New Zealand political analysis describes as the "strong unspoken consensus between the two major parties: Most people's living standards needed to reduce to thwart inflation". The same neoliberal logic that presents austerity as inevitable also presents corporate control over digital platforms as natural and unchangeable.

Corporate Colonialism in Action

The merger of X with Musk's AI company xAI for $33 billion in March 202510 represents the convergence of social media surveillance with AI capabilities. This creates what researchers call "tech hegemony", where corporate elites shape society according to their own conceptions of the digital world.

For Indigenous communities, this poses particular dangers. Research shows that "extractive projects are disproportionately harming Indigenous Peoples across the world," with 34% of projects in the Environmental Justice Atlas dataset impacting Indigenous communities despite them making up only 6.2% of the world population. Digital colonialism operates through the same extractive logic, harvesting data from Indigenous communities without consent.

The Māori Response: Asserting Digital Sovereignty

The groundbreaking agreement between Te Tumu Paeroa and Microsoft to transfer data from offshore servers to New Zealand demonstrates how Māori communities are asserting digital sovereignty. This deal ensures that data management aligns with Māori cultural principles, particularly kaitiakitanga, with the data owners holding encryption keys rather than the tech company.

This represents a direct challenge to the colonial logic of platforms like X. Where corporate colonialism seeks to extract value from our digital interactions, Māori data sovereignty principles assert that Māori have inherent rights to control Māori data ecosystems and that decisions about data storage should enhance control for current and future generations.

The Surveillance State Connection

The integration of social media platforms with AI capabilities creates new opportunities for what research describes as "imperial state surveillance" where "Global North intelligence agencies partner with their own corporations to conduct mass and targeted surveillance in the Global South". In New Zealand, this manifests through the government's "cloud-first" policy that led to offshoring of data despite earlier concerns about "data misuse and loss of control".

The FBI's ability to access New Zealand data stored in the United States through the Cloud Act demonstrates how digital colonialism operates through legal frameworks that prioritize corporate interests over Indigenous sovereignty. As Professor Tahu Kukutai warns, "Instead of just making these unilateral decisions to offshore not just only Māori data, but actually all New Zealanders' data ... Māori need to be involved in system-level decisions".

The Fast-Track Connection: Extractive Capitalism Across Domains

The same colonial logic evident in X's operations appears in New Zealand's Fast-track Approvals Bill, which environmental consultant Tina Porou describes as "pro-development, constitutionally flawed, and concentrates power into three ministers" with "grand repercussions for hapū and iwi customary rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi".

Ngāi Tahu, whose territory includes two-thirds of New Zealand's conservation estate, has expressed concern that the bill "does not include a reference to Te Tiriti o Waitangi or its principles". This reflects the broader pattern where neoliberal policies are "presented as if there is no alternative" while systematically undermining Indigenous rights.

White Supremacy and the Digital Amplification of Hate

The connection between digital platforms and white supremacist ideology isn't accidental. Research shows that "within online spheres, The Disinformation Project has observed rising anti-Māori racism rooted in white supremacist ideologies", with racist messages "shrouded in misinformation and disinformation that promotes fears of a 'civil war' in Aotearoa if te Tiriti justice is pursued".

The targeting of "high-profile wāhine Māori" through "dehumanising, denigrating, body-shaming and vulgar" social media posts demonstrates how digital platforms amplify existing systems of oppression. As The Disinformation Project director Kate Hannah explains, this represents "widescale, organised targeting" designed to reduce Māori participation in political spaces.

The Broader Implications: Corporate Power and Democratic Accountability

Yaccarino's departure must be understood within the broader context of Musk's departure from the Trump administration after "a turbulent period working to restructure the federal government". His admission of being "disappointed" with Republican spending plans reveals the fundamental tension between corporate interests and democratic governance.

The decline in Tesla's profits amid the "escalating trade war" and calls for Musk to "return to work as sales slumped and protests targeted the electric vehicle maker" demonstrate how corporate colonialism ultimately undermines even the corporations that practice it.

The Path Forward: Decolonizing Digital Spaces

The solution to digital colonialism isn't better corporate leadership—it's fundamental system change. This requires:

Asserting Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Supporting initiatives like Te Mana Raraunga's principles that assert Māori control over Māori data ecosystems.

Challenging Surveillance Capitalism: Recognizing that platforms like X aren't neutral spaces but tools of extraction and control that perpetuate "racial surveillance capitalism."

Building Alternative Systems: Creating communication platforms based on principles of kaitiakitanga rather than profit extraction.

Regulatory Resistance: Supporting frameworks that hold platforms accountable for the harm they enable while protecting Indigenous rights.

Exposing the Connections: Revealing how digital colonialism, extractive capitalism, and white supremacist ideology operate as interconnected systems of oppression.

The Death of Corporate Colonialism

Linda Yaccarino's resignation from X represents more than the failure of one executive—it reveals the fundamental impossibility of humanizing an inherently dehumanizing system. Her departure exposes how corporate colonialism operates through the extraction of attention, data, and democratic participation while amplifying the worst forms of hate speech and misinformation.

The values of our tīpuna—kaitiakitanga, tino rangatiratanga, and manaakitanga—offer a path forward that prioritizes collective wellbeing over corporate profit. As we face the growing threat of AI-powered surveillance and the continued erosion of Indigenous sovereignty, we must remember that resistance is not only possible but necessary.

The corporate colonizers may control the platforms, but they cannot control our determination to build systems that serve our communities rather than extracting from them. The time has come to reclaim our digital sovereignty and create a future where technology serves life rather than death.

For those who find value in this analysis of corporate colonialism's digital frontier, the MGL understands these tough economic times for whānau so please only contribute a koha if you have capacity and wish to do so: HTDM: 03-1546-0415173-000.

Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui.

References

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n8R_-wXK0x55j5uq9H45dnAwLZsx2zu81-NH2Fk-KmU/edit?usp=drivesdk