Less than 24 hours after Elon Musk tweeted that he had found a successor to lead Twitter, the CEO revealed her identity: former NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino.
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
Speculation about Yaccarino swirled Friday morning after reports emerged that she was in “deep talks” to take on the role and NBCUniversal announced her resignation.
The pair are previously familiar with each other. Yaccarino and Musk shared the stage for a keynote conversation last month at a marketing conference. The event, titled "Twitter 2.0: From Conversations to Partnerships” involved a discussion of the role marketers play in the future of Twitter.
Retaining advertising has been a particular concern for Musk since he took the reins in October. Several weeks from now, that concern will fall to Yaccarino, although it's an open question how hands-on Musk will be.
His announcement said, "Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X," referring to paperwork he filed last month to fold Twitter into an entity known as X Corp. Twitter has also filed to become a payments processor, which is thought to be a central component of Musk's vision of an "everything app."
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
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