Linda Yaccarino, the former chief executive of Elon Musk's X, is joining the board of Better.com as the digital mortgage lender looks for stability following a messy and expensive proxy fight.
Yaccarino is one of the first new board members to be appointed by founder Vishal Garg after he was ousted as chief executive and then regained control this month.
"Linda has deep experience building partnerships and leading a turnaround at X," Garg said. "That perspective is exactly what we need as we build Better 2.0."
Garg is looking to entirely remake the board and start growing Better.com's core digital lending product to make up for a distracting proxy fight that cost the company $8 million in its third quarter alone, according to public filings. Better's stock has lost roughly 75% of its value this year, as the infighting and doubts about Garg's decision-making have weighed on investors.
After regaining majority voting rights, Garg fired five board directors and is looking to completely remake the board. Along with Yaccarino, video-game investor Bing Gordon and investor Steve Sarracino have joined the new board, Better said.
In August, Better's board voted to terminate Garg as chief executive with a unanimous vote, excluding Garg. The board said in a filing that it was concerned about his judgement due to a series of decisions and actions he had made, as well as the company's cumulative net loss of $1.5 billion since 2022.
In response to his ousting, Garg called for five board directors to resign. Better then filed a lawsuit against Garg, alleging that he had secretly coordinated with other shareholders and violated federal securities laws in his effort to remove board directors and regain control.
After regaining voting power, Garg removed five board members and laid out a plan to serve as head of product, platform and innovation, while working with an incoming interim chief executive. He is also working with an advisory firm to appoint an interim chief executive and figure out how to streamline operations to meet efficiency targets.
Yaccarino said she is passionate about Better's mission to make mortgage lending simpler and more accessible for Americans. During her time at X, she helped build X Money, a digital finance and payment service integrated with the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Yaccarino spent a tumultuous two years at X after Elon Musk bought the platform. She was tasked with resurrecting X's advertising business after companies walked away from the site over fears that Musk's ownership would turn away users.
She departed in 2025 after Musk merged X with his xAI artificial intelligence company, and her exit came amid clashes with management, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Since leaving X in 2025, Yaccarino has served as chief executive of eMed Population Health, a private health-management company. Before X, Yaccarino spent more than a decade as chair of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal.
"Linda's extensive experience in enterprise partnerships, advertising and consumer behavior serves Better very well," Garg said.
Better is currently divesting non-core assets, including selling its U.K. banking operations, and investing more in its Home Equity Line of Credit business with the goal of hitting $2 billion in quarterly combined volume.
On Wednesday, Better recorded preliminary third-quarter results that came in below expectations. Revenue is seen rising 9% to $45.1 million, below Wall Street estimates and the internal projection of $49 million to $52 million.
Garg said spending related to the proxy fight weighed on volume and revenue during the quarter. Better spent more than $8 million on the fight, he said.
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