Longtime NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino will replace Elon Musk as Twitter’s top boss. “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter,” Musk tweeted Friday.
Musk, who’s been in charge of Twitter since buying the platform in October for $44 billion, said that Yaccarino “will focus primarily on business operations,” while he turns his attention to “product design & new technology.”
As Fox Business reports, together, Musk and Yaccarino will work on transforming “this platform into X, the everything app,” he added. Musk recently changed the name of Twitter Inc. to X Corp. Yaccarino, who served as the global chair for advertising and partnerships at NBC, announced her resignation from NBCUniversal on Friday morning.
Yaccarino spent nearly 12 years heading the media giant’s advertising and partnerships division. She was credited with helping launch its ad-supported streaming service Peacock and forging partnerships with companies like Apple News, BuzzFeed, Holler, ReachTV, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube.
Her sudden departure came a day after Musk said that he hired a new, female CEO for the social media platform. He did not name a successor at the time. The billionaire said in a Thursday tweet that the new CEO would start in about six weeks, and that he will transition to executive chair and chief technology officer.
The news of a new Twitter boss comes as no surprise as Musk had repeatedly said that he did not plan on being the permanent CEO. In November, Musk told a Delaware court he expected “to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time.” In December, he pledged that he would “resign as soon as he finds “someone foolish enough to take the job.”
Musk told the BBC last month that running the social media company has been “quite painful.”
Luring advertisers is critical for Musk and Twitter after many fled in the early months after his takeover of the social media platform, fearing harm to their brands in the ensuing chaos. Musk said in late April that advertisers had returned, but provided no details. The billionaire told BBC last month that the company is now “roughly” breaking even.
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