Updated: Elon Musk confirmed in a tweet that Linda Yaccarino has been appointed as the CEO of Twitter, and that she will focus primarily on business operations. The comes barely hours after Musk said that he hired a new CEO for the social media company, and soon after, Yaccarino resigned from NBCUniversal, effective immediately.
I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.
Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app. https://t.co/TiSJtTWuky
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2023
Original article: More than six months after Twitter passed into private hands, the social media company may be getting new leadership once again. Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced in a tweet on Thursday that he has “hired a new CEO for X/Twitter” and that “she will be starting in ~6 weeks.” Musk refrained from naming anyone in his tweet.
According to media reports, which cite two people with knowledge of the matter, the title of the Twitter CEO may go to Linda Yaccarino, the chair of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal. As for Musk himself, he shall assume the role of executive chair and CTO, where he will be in charge of overseeing product, software & sysops of the popular micro-blogging site.
This news should be taken with a pinch of salt, given that Musk is prone to changing his mind at the last moment and often roll out (or refrain from rolling out) new features and announcements. The hiring of a new CEO for Twitter is long overdue, given that users already shared their preferences relinquishing the position he acquired after taking over Twitter. That was in the final days of October, when the billionaire bought Twitter for $44 billion and started a regime that has been characterized by chaos.
It also comes months after Musk posted a poll on the social media platform asking users whether he should step down as Twitter CEO. That was back in December 2022, and 57.5% users voted for him to step down as CEO of the social media platform. The billionaire told users that he would abide by the results of the poll, and that he would step down from the post as soon as he found someone “foolish enough” to take the job.
Both Musk and Yaccarino declined from responding to requests for comment.
Now, it remains to be seen whether Yaccarino does step up to take the new role, and whether Twitter benefits from it. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, she is already in advanced talks to take over the new position, and is currently in “back to back rehearsals” for an upfront presentation to advertisers.
Should Yaccarino take over the position of Twitter CEO, she will inherit a social media company that has been ravaged by chaos and poor decision making in the past few months. The Musk regime has already seen the exit of multiple executives, as well as thousands of employees (including it’s press and PR teams, which is why all requests for comments are replied with poop emojis). Twitter was also embroiled in its fair share of controversies and lawsuits after Musk allowed banned users to return to it’s platform, among other questionable decisions.
It remains to be seen whether Yaccarino’s reign can restore the confidence of advertisers in the platform – many had jumped ship in the past months, which led to tough times for Twitter’s core advertising business.
Multiple companies halted their paid promotional campaigns amidst an increase in offensive speech and hateful rhetoric on the platform, and Musk’s gamble to transform Twitter Blue into a new and steady stream of revenue failed to bear significant results.
