Elon Musk Announces Linda Yaccarino as New Twitter CEO: 'I Am Excited'
Elon Musk announced on Friday that Linda Yaccarino "will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology"
Elon Musk has named Twitter's new CEO.
Less than one day after announcing a new hire had been made, the billionaire Twitter owner shared that Linda Yaccarino, who just left her role as chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, was his replacement.
"I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!" Musk wrote, appropriately enough, on Twitter.
"@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology," added the billionaire. "Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app."
The news came just hours after Musk shared he had "hired a new CEO."
"She will be starting in ~ 6 weeks!" he added in a social media post, without sharing any additional information.
Musk first promised to step down as Twitter CEO in December, two months after paying $44 billion for the social media platform — and posting a poll in which he asked, "Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of the poll."
He later shared that 57.5 percent of people voted yes.
In response, he tweeted: "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."
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In considering the options for a new CEO, Musk previously said that person "must like pain a lot" to run a business that "has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy."
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Yaccarino's departure from NBCUniversal was also announced on Friday.
"NBCUniversal today announced that Linda Yaccarino is leaving the company, effective immediately," they said in a statement.
"It has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team," Yaccarino said in a statement. "We've transformed our company and the entire industry—and I am so proud of what we've accomplished together, and grateful to my colleagues and mentors, especially Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanagh and the entire NBCU leadership team."
Yaccarino worked at NBCUniversal for over 11 years, according to CNN. She also started her career there as a college intern, returning to the company after serving as executive vice president/COO of advertising sales, marketing and acquisitions at Turner Broadcasting.
Before joining Twitter, the media executive interviewed Musk at a marking event in April.
"We can all agree … this freedom of speech, deserves a bit more reach," Yaccarino wrote on Twitter at the time alongside a link to video of their conversation.
In response, Musk simply replied, "Thanks for having me."
Musk's time as Twitter CEO began when he carried a kitchen sink into San Francisco headquarters. Claims that he wasn't even paying the rent at the office building were also made amid an epic tenure that was marred from the start by a mass exodus of thousands of employees who left by their own will or were forced out.
Users who once gravitated to the forum for its reputation as an egalitarian coffee house became increasingly alienated, and some accounts were deactivated by the businessman for challenging him. Musk defended his actions, even though they were widely seen as anti-free speech.
Since purchasing Twitter, the company has reportedly struggled with advertisers, with Musk himself saying last year there had been a "massive drop in revenue" as companies paused paying for ads. Many online have posited that Yaccarino's hiring shows Musk is committed to remedy the ad situation.
Yaccarino has yet to publicly comment on the news.
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