Elon Musk announced on Thursday that he has found a new CEO for Twitter but did not identify the individual, while the Wall Street Journal claimed that Comcast NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino is in talks for the position.
“Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter,” Musk wrote in a tweet. She will begin in six weeks!”
Elon Musk announced on Thursday that he has found a new CEO for Twitter but did not identify the individual, while the Wall Street Journal claimed that Comcast NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino is in talks for the position. “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter,” Musk wrote in a tweet. She will begin in six weeks!”
According to Reuters report, The WSJ cited people familiar with the situation in saying that Yaccarino was in talks for the top post. Reuters reported after Musk’s tweet that Yaccarino could be his choice to lead Twitter, according to a Silicon Valley executive and a former Hollywood executive who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Yaccarino, the top advertising sales executive at NBCUniversal, interviewed Musk at an advertising conference in Miami last month. At the conference, Yaccarino encouraged the audience to welcome Musk with applause and lauded his work ethic. “Many of you in this room know me, and you know I pride myself on my work ethic,” she said, adding, “Buddy, I met my match. “Yaccarino joined NBCU in 2011, after 15 years at Turner Entertainment and has been credited with dragging the network’s ad sales operation into the digital future.
As broadcast television audiences migrated to streaming, she took to the stage at Radio City Music Hall last year to tell advertisers that their brand messages were not an afterthought. Yaccarino did not respond to calls seeking comment on Thursday. When asked for comment, an NBCUniversal spokesperson said, “Linda is in back-to-back rehearsals for the Upfront,” referring to a presentation NBCUniversal will host for advertisers in New York on Monday.
Yaccarino’s exit would be another big blow to the company after Comcast said last month that NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell was leaving after acknowledging an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company, following a complaint that prompted an investigation.
Musk has previously not named any prospective candidates.Speculation was rife on Thursday among tech and media insiders and on Blind, an anonymous messaging app for tech employees.Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and a top executive at Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink, Shivon Zilis, were among names that were being discussed.
Musk, who has come under fire from investors in his Tesla electric car company as being distracted by his attention to Twitter, said he will transition to the role of Twitter’s executive chair, along with the role of CTO, overseeing product, software and system operations.
Musk’s post about a new Twitter CEO came about 15 minutes before the close of Wall Street on Thursday, and Tesla shares closed 2% higher. The shares rose a further 1.6% in after-hours trade. “The boat anchor called Twitter is loosened from Musk’s ankle. Now he can get back to spending more time creating value at Tesla,” said Craig Irwin, analyst at Roth MKM.
Musk has long said he intended to find a new leader for Twitter. In a Twitter poll started by Musk in December, 57.5% users voted for him to step down as CEO of the social media platform.
The billionaire’s first two weeks as Twitter’s owner in October were marked by rapid change. He quickly fired Twitter’s previous CEO, Parag Agrawal, and other senior leaders, and then laid off half its staff in November.
Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has said he took over Twitter to prevent the platform from becoming an echo chamber for hate and division. He also said he would “defeat” spam bots on the platform, a key area of his tussle with Twitter’s board over his back and forth on the buyout of the company. He said last month that Twitter was “roughly breaking even.”