Elon Musk has announced that the new CEO of Twitter will be Linda Yaccarino.
Musk stated that she will “will focus primarily on business operations” while he focuses “on product design and new technology” as an executive chairman and CTO.
Yaccarino has served as the chairman of global advertising and partnership at NBC Universal and serves as an executive chair at the World Economic Forum (WEF).
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
Yaccarino has worked at NBCUniversal for almost 12 years. According to her company’s bio, her team has sold more than $100 billion in ads since 2011. LinkedIn says that Yaccarino was NBC’s chair for advertising and client relations and president of cable entertainment and digital ad sales in the past. Before joining NBC, Yaccarino worked for almost 20 years at the global entertainment company Turner.
This is considered good news for Twitter and their attempt to rebound from public opinion. They are down in valuation nearly $20 Billion after multiple Fortune 100 and 500 companies pulled their advertising dollars away from Twitter over the last 3 months. Musk’s attempt to bring back the advertisers to the platform is something he said is a focus, but won’t sell out his vision to bring them back.
Ad agency DiGo founder and creative chief Mark DiMassimo said said, “If anyone can turn Musk’s vision into benefits for marketers, she will be able to do it.” “Even though there is skepticism and all marketers are in the “show me” state right now with Twitter, this is a powerfully reassuring move if she does go to Twitter.”
Musk has always said that he is not the permanent CEO of the company. In a tweet on Thursday, the Tesla billionaire said that his job will change. He will now be Twitter’s executive chairman and chief technology officer.
Mid-November, just a few weeks after buying the social media platform for $44 billion, he told a Delaware court that he does not want to be the CEO of any business.
In December, more than a month later, he wrote, “I’ll quit as CEO as soon as I find someone stupid enough to take the job.” The billionaire made the promise after millions of Twitter users asked him to step down in a poll he set up and promised to follow.
