Elon Musk Announces Former NBC Universal Ad Executive Linda Yaccarino as New Twitter CEO
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – South African business tycoon Elon Musk announced on Friday that he has named Linda Yaccarino, a former advertising executive for NBC Universal, as the new Chief Operating Officer (CEO) of Twitter.
Musk had initially announced via a tweet on Thursday that he had hired a new CEO – and that he himself would be taking a reduced role at the company as a result – but declined to reveal their identity at that time.
“Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!” he tweeted at 3:32 p.m. on Thursday. “My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”
Yaccarino, a graduate of Penn State who had been employed at NBC as the global chair for advertising and partnerships, announced her resignation from NBC Universal on Friday morning; shortly thereafter, Musk revealed her to be the new boss of the social media microblogging site.
“I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!” he tweeted. “@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.”
The Tesla CEO and billionaire made headlines in early April 2022 when Musk purchased a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter – the equivalent of 73.5 million shares or $2.89 billion – making him the platform’s largest shareholder. Later that month, Musk then made an offer to purchase Twitter outright for $44 billion, which the company accepted.
At the time, Musk revealed his plans to take the publicly-traded company private and make it a “platform for free speech” by greatly toning down the platform’s extremely strict content moderation policies, promises he has for the most part made good on.
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