Elon Musk announced on Thursday that a new CEO has been hired for X/Twitter, and “she will be starting in 6 weeks.” Musk is keeping his word of stepping down from the role, according to a poll he made in December. Musk promised to resign as Twitter’s CEO after 57.5% of 17.5 million users voted “Yes”. “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” Musk made a follow-up tweet to the poll in December.
Musk did not reveal who the new Twitter CEO is but says he will “transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.” After Musk’s announcement, The Wall Street Journal reported that NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino is “in talks” to be Twitter’s new CEO. Puck News’ Dylan Byers also confirmed the story, citing two unnamed sources that Musk “plans” to make Yaccarino the next CEO of Twitter.
Amidst all the chaos and criticism trailing Musk’s takeover of Twitter, Yaccarino has spoken favourably of Musk, and the two have been seen together at industry events. Twitter and NBCUniversal recently renewed their partnership for Twitter to amplify NBCUniversal’s coverage of the 2024 Olympic Games, after which Yaccarino tweeted at Musk to bring back Periscope, calling it “an idea for our new partnership.”
Yaccarino is more than qualified for the role and is “well respected among the cohort of CMOs who need to be convinced to spend” on Twitter again, according to The Verge. “She’s tough as fucking nails and she’s always wanted this job,” a former colleague says. “It’s perfect.”
Musk’s Twitter takeover has gained mixed reactions from the public, dissolving the board and firing thousands of executives. Some major advertisers have also paused advertising on the platform amidst the chaos. At the same time, Twitter has had to deal with impostor accounts being verified after its initial rollout of the revamped Twitter Blue.
Since Musk took over Twitter, investors at Tesla have been worried his attention is divided. Still, fears will now be allayed with Musk stepping down from the social media platform to focus more on the automotive company.
