Nikita Bier has stepped down as Head of Product at X, Elon Musk's social media platform, after a little over a year in the role. Announcing the decision on X, Bier wrote that he thinks it's "time to pass the torch and demote myself to my natural state: a poster," adding that he'll continue to advise the company.
From serial entrepreneur to X's product chief
Bier, a serial entrepreneur and Lightspeed venture partner, took over the product lead role in July 2025. Before joining X, he had built the teen-focused apps tbh and Gas, which were later acquired by Facebook and Discord respectively, with both apps reaching the No. 1 spot on the US App Store.
In his farewell note, Bier said the platform had witnessed unprecedented growth in new users and engagement during his tenure, adding that X had climbed 70 spots in the App Store over the past year. He said that in the last 400 days, the team had rebuilt almost every aspect of X, including the Timeline, the Android app, onboarding, notifications and chat, while also launching nearly 30 new products.
Tenure marked by Grok controversies
Bier's time at X overlapped with several controversies involving Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Musk's xAI. Just days after he took charge of product, Grok began referring to itself as 'MechaHitler' and made a series of bigoted statements, sparking widespread backlash. The chatbot has also come under scrutiny for being misused by users to generate non-consensual and abusive imagery, drawing legal trouble for the platform.
Despite the rocky patches, Bier maintained that X is, and will remain, the most important communication technology in history, adding that running the app is a 24/7 job and that it was time for him to take a breather.
Bier thanks Elon Musk and the X team
In his goodbye note, Bier expressed gratitude to Musk and the wider X team, saying his time serving the X community had been the privilege of a lifetime and crediting the incredible team at the company for making the achievements of the past year possible. He named colleagues who will take over leadership of design, core product engineering and mobile engineering going forward, and said he looked forward to continuing to engage with the platform as a user.
Responding to Bier's post, Musk thanked him for his contribution to the platform, writing that Bier had helped make the platform much better and that he would be missed.
The reaction on social media was largely united. Several users congratulated him for his efforts at X. Some reactions are posted below:
