Elon Musk had previously hinted at this, and now he is making it public. The Twitter Boss, who bought Twitter last year and now runs it as CEO, has stated that he has found someone else to oversee the company. In other words, Twitter will soon have a new CEO, and Musk will transition into a new job where he will be more focused on product. According to rumours, the new Twitter CEO will be Linda Yaccarino, the current chairperson of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal.
Musk made the announcement on Twitter on Thursday, May 11. “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter,” he tweeted. “She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”
While Musk did not reveal who the new Twitter CEO is going to be, rumours quickly began circulating that it was Yaccarino. Kara Swisher, a journalist and Silicon Valley insider suggested that the person is none other than Yaccarino. Soon, Wall Street Journal followed with a report saying that Yaccarino is likely to be the new Twitter CEO.
Yaccarino is a known figure in the media industry. She has been with NBCUniversal for more than 20 years and has held a variety of leadership positions. She is currently responsible for all of NBCUniversal’s global advertising and partnerships businesses.
The Wall Street Journal was among the first to report that Yaccarino is in “talks” to become Twitter’s new CEO. However, no confirmation has been provided by NBCUniversal. Yaccarino has likewise been tight-lipped regarding her selection as Twitter’s new CEO.
If Yaccarino is indeed the new CEO, it seems Elon Musk is following the classic Silicon Valley formula to run his social media site. Often, the tech bigwigs hire industry insiders to run the operation side of their company while they focus on engineering and products. Google’s founders did it earlier when they hired Eric Schmidt. Mark Zuckerberg used the same formula at Facebook, where previous COO Sheryl Sandberg looked after the business side of the company while its famous founder focused on products.
After the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Musk has implemented significant changes to the social media platform. He fired several top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, the CFO, and the general counsel. In addition, Musk has conducted widespread layoffs, he fired 75 per cent of Twitter workforce and introduced content moderation and product changes in quick succession. One such change was making the verification system part of an improved subscription service.
In November, the Tesla CEO claimed that he had “too much work” on his plate after the Twitter acquisition, and in December, he polled Twitter users for their opinions on whether he should step down as CEO. A majority of respondents favored him leaving the position. Musk joked about who would run Twitter if he were to step down, stating that he would resign as soon as he found “someone foolish enough to take the job.” He also expressed his intention to appoint a new CEO toward the end of 2023.