Until now NBCUniversal’s head of publicity, Linda Yaccarino, will be the new CEO of Twitter. The owner of the company, Elon Musk, has confirmed it this Friday. “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter”, he has expressed on the social network itself.
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
Musk already announced the day before that he had hired a new CEO, without disclosing her identity. “It will start in about six weeks,” he explained. NBCUniversal announced this Friday that Yaccarino has resigned from his position.
Musk has warned that in the new structure, he reserves a significant number of functions for himself: the executive presidency, the head of technology, product supervision, software and systems operator. Yaccarino, NBCU’s president of global advertising and partnerships, has worked at NBCU for more than a decade and as NBCU’s head of advertising sales, was instrumental in launching the company’s ad-supported streaming service Peacock, according to The Wall Street. Journal (WSJ).
This medium also points out that Yaccarino’s nickname is “velvet hammer”, due to his harsh negotiation tactics. Last month, at a conference in Miami Beach, Yaccarino interviewed Musk and asked him about his Twitter vision.
In 2021, the year before Musk took over the social network and took it private, advertising accounted for nearly 90% of the company’s revenue. But then things changed dramatically: Of the top 100 advertisers on Twitter before Musk bought the company, 37 spent nothing on network advertising in the first quarter of this year, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, while that 24 other brands reduced their average monthly ad spend on Twitter by 80% or more.
In April, Musk said that Twitter could be cash flow positive as early as this quarter. After buying Twitter for $44 billion, Musk fired several of the company’s top leaders, including CEO Parag Agrawal, legal counsel and chief financial officer.
Last December, Musk floated the idea of appointing someone to take over the day-to-day management of the social media platform, and in a 12-hour survey the billionaire posted on his Twitter account, 57% of respondents he said he should resign as CEO. However, then he didn’t, and he settled the matter with a quip: “I’ll resign as CEO as soon as I find someone crazy enough to take that position!” he said.
This Friday, the news that Musk will step aside his Twitter responsibilities was celebrated among investors, as after his tweet about the search for a new CEO for Twitter, shares of Tesla (another of the companies owned by Musk) shot up and closed up 2%.
