Elon Musk has confirmed that the new CEO of Twitter will be Linda Yaccarino of NBCUniversal, an executive with deep ties to the advertising industry.
“I am thrilled to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!” Musk wrote in a tweet on Friday. He added that Yaccarino “will focus primarily on the business” while Musk will be closely tied to product design and new technology.
Ahead of that announcement, NBCUniversal said on Friday that Yaccarino would immediately step down as president of global advertising and partnerships.
musk, Who bought Twitter last fall and has run it ever since, has long insisted he will step down as the company’s top executive, now known as X Corp.
However, few expected that Musk would remove himself from the decision-making process at Twitter.
Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester Research, said: “Despite stepping down as CEO, there’s a good chance Musk won’t back down from directing product shots.
Who is Linda Yaccarino and what will she do on Twitter
Yaccarino, with deep roots in the advertising industry, could be a key player in Twitter’s future.
Attracting advertisers is crucial to Musk and Twitter after many fled in the early months after he took over Twitter. social media platform, fearing damaging their brand in the ensuing chaos. Musk said in late April that advertisers were back, but did not provide details.
Mark DiMassimo, founder and creative director of advertising agency DiGo, says Yaccarino has successfully integrated and digitized ad sales at Comcast and NBC – and a track record of ad cross-selling Her work on different platforms could appeal to Musk as he tries to transform Twitter from a social media company into a larger media platform.
Yaccarino has been with NBCUniversal for nearly 12 years — with her team generating more than $100 billion in ad revenue since 2011, according to her company biographical notes.
According to LinkedIn, Yaccarino previously served as NBC’s president of advertising and client partnerships, and president of cable entertainment and digital ad sales. Before joining NBC, Yaccarino worked at global entertainment company Turner for nearly two decades.
Yaccarino and musk
Last month, Yaccarino interviewed Musk on a stage in Miami last month in front of hundreds of advertisers.
“If anyone can turn Musk’s vision into an advantage for marketers, then she can,” DiMassimo said Friday, before Musk’s confirmation. “Despite the skepticism and all the marketers currently living in a ‘show me’ state for Twitter, if she does in fact go on Twitter this is a powerful reassurance move. .”
Proulx added that advertising isn’t the only challenge Twitter’s new CEO will face – after all, Musk has “fundamentally changed” Twitter as a product and a community, arguably is “for the worse”.
Shares of Tesla up about 2% on Thursday after Musk made the announcement. Electricity shareholders car The company was worried about how much attention he was getting on Twitter.
Last November, Musk was questioned in court about how he splits his time between Tesla and his other companies, including space and Twitter. Musk had to testify in trial in Delaware’s Premier Court about a shareholder’s challenge to his potential $55 billion compensation plan as the company’s CEO. Electric Car.
Musk said he never intended to be CEO of Tesla and that he didn’t want to be the CEO of any other company, preferring to consider himself an engineer. At the time, Musk also said he expected Twitter’s restructuring to be complete in the next week or so. It’s been almost six months since he said that.
Musk’s tenure at the helm of Twitter was tumultuous, and he made various promises and statements that he either withdrew or never fulfilled. He began the first day firing the company’s top executives, then about 80% of the company’s employees. He has upgraded the platform’s verification system and has scaled down content moderation and safeguards against the spread of misinformation.
Speaking to Twitter followers late last year, Musk expressed pessimism about the prospect of a new CEO, saying that one “must suffer a lot” to run a company “on the verge of bankruptcy.” “.
“Nobody wants the job that can actually keep Twitter alive. No successor,” Musk tweeted at the time.
