Elon Musk said that the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal, Linda Yaccarino, will be the new CEO of Twitter. In October, Musk quit his job as CEO of the social media company he bought for $44 billion. He had already given signs that he would only be on the job for a short time.
On Thursday, he wrote on Twitter, “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter, but I won’t say who it is.” She will start in 6 weeks!”
He made the official announcement on Twitter on Friday, saying that Yaccarino “will focus mostly on business operations while I focus on product design and new technology.”
Linda Yaccarino New CEO of Twitter
He wrote, “I’m looking forward to working with Linda to turn this platform into X, the app for everything.” He seems to be very hopeful about turning Twitter into a tool that can be used for messaging, payments, and business.
Friday morning, NBCUniversal said that Yaccarino would be leaving the company “as of right now.” Her sudden departure comes just a few days before NBCUniversal’s yearly “upfronts” presentation, which is the biggest TV advertising event of the year.
After Jeff Shell left NBCUniversal last month, there were rumors that Yaccarino might be a good choice to take over as CEO. She also said on Friday, “Being a part of Comcast NBCUniversal has been an absolute honor.”
The Wall Street Journal was the first to say that she was in talks for the job at Twitter.