Elon Musk has found the person who will replace him as the CEO of Twitter.
Update 11:56 a.m. EDT, May 12: Musk made the announcement Friday on Twitter that Linda Yaccarino has been hired as the new CEO of the social media company.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2023
Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app. https://t.co/TiSJtTWuky
Yaccarino had announced she resigned from NBC Universal as chairman of global advertising and partnerships, CNN reported.
“It has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team,” she said in a statement. “We’ve transformed our company and the entire industry.”
She had been with NBCUniversal for 11 years and was in charge of 2,000 people, CNN reported. That number is more than the current number of Twitter employees. Musk told BBC News that there were only 1,500 workers after several rounds of layoffs at the social media company.
When Musk bought Twitter, there were just under 8,000 employees, according to BBC News.
Original report: The Associated Press reported that Musk did not announce who the person is, only that it is a woman and that she’ll start at Twitter, which is also known as X Corp., in about six weeks.
Musk has been at the helm of the social media platform since he bought it last fall, saying he would not be the company’s permanent chief operating officer. He paid about $44 billion for Twitter.
With the hiring of his replacement, Musk said on Twitter on Thursday that he would become the company’s executive chairman and chief technology officer, the AP reported.
Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023
My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.
While Musk did not announce who he hired, The Washington Post reported on Friday that NBC’s Linda Yaccarino would be the new CEO, according to two people familiar with the agreement.
The New York Times also reported that Yaccarino was in talks with Musk about the CEO job, adding that she had interviewed Musk during an advertising event in Miami last month.
Yaccarino is currently the chairman of Global Advertising and Partnerships at NBC Universal, the newspaper reported. The Wall Street Journal said she has been with the company for more than a decade and was a key player in the launch of the company’s ad-supported Peacock streaming service.
CNBC reported that NBC Universal has already announced Yaccarino’s resignation.
