Elon Musk names Linda Yaccarino as new Twitter CEO

Elon Musk has confirmed that the new CEO for Twitter or X Corp as its now called will be NBCUniversals Linda Yaccarino an executive with deep ties to the advertising industryI am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter Musk wrote in a Friday tweet He added that Yaccarino will focus primarily on business operations while I focus on product design amp new technologyYaccarino has worked at NBCUniversal for nearly 12 years with her team generating more than USD 100 billion in ad sales since 2011 her company bio notesAccording to LinkedIn Yaccarino previously served as NBCs chair for advertising and client partnerships and as president of cable entertainment and digital advertising sales Prior to her time with NBC Yaccarino worked at global entertainment company Turner for almost two decadesYaccarino interviewed Musk on a Miami stage last month in front of hundreds of advertisersLuring 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 detailsYaccarino could help restore advertisers faith in Twitter ad agency DiGo founder and creative chief Mark DiMassimo said He noted that Yaccarino successfully integrated and digitised ad sales at Comcast and NBC and that her track record of crossselling ads across different platforms could appeal to Musk as he tries to transform Twitter from a social media company to a bigger media platformIf anyone can translate the Musk vision into advantages for marketers shell be able to do it DiMassimo said Even though theres skepticism and all marketers live in the show me state right now with regard to Twitter if in fact she does go to Twitter this is a powerfully reassuring moveMusk has long insisted he is not the companys permanent CEO The Tesla billionaire said in a tweet Thursday that his role will transition to being Twitters executive chairman and chief technology officerIn midNovember just a few weeks after buying the social media platform for 44 billion he told a Delaware court that he does not want to be the CEO of any companyMore than a month later he tweeted in December I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job The pledge came after millions of Twitter users asked him to step down in a Twitter poll the billionaire himself created and promised to abide byIn February he told a conference he anticipated finding a CEO for San Franciscobased Twitter probably toward the end of this yearAlso Read Islamabad High Court grants twoweek bail to Imran Khan in corruption caseAnalysts who follow Twitters business welcomed the news even without knowing who the replacement will be Twitters advertising business has taken a hit underMusks mercurial rule though the billionaire told BBC last month that the company is now roughly breaking evenA new CEO is the only way forward for Twitter said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine EnbergThe single biggest problem with Twitters ad business was Elon Musk As he steps back Twitter can begin to unravel Musks personal brand from the companys corporate image and attempt to regain trust among advertisers Enberg said The success of those efforts will depend on who takes over but its difficult to imagine that the new CEO could be more controversial or damaging to Twitters ad business than Musk has beenMike Proulx research director at Forrester Research added that advertising is not the only challenge that Twitters new CEO will face after all Musk has fundamentally altered Twitter both as a product and a community arguably for the worstWhile hes stepping back from the CEO title Musk is far from likely to step back from calling the product shots Proulx saidShares of Tesla rose about 2 per cent Thursday after Musk made the announcement Shareholders of the electric car company have been concerned about how much of his attention is being spent on TwitterLast November Musk was questioned in court about how he splits his time among Tesla and his other companies including SpaceX and Twitter Musk had to testify in the trial in Delawares Court of Chancery over a shareholders challenge to his potentially USD 55 billion compensation plan as CEO of the electric car companyMusk said he never intended to be CEO of Tesla and that he didnt want to be chief executive of any other companies either preferring to see himself as an engineer Musk also said at the time that he expected an organizational restructuring of Twitter to be completed in the next week or so Its been nearly six months since he said thatMusks tenure at Twitters helm has been chaotic and hes made various promises and proclamations hes backtracked or never followed up on He began his first day firing the companys top executives followed by roughly 8037 of its staff Hes upended the platforms verification system and has scaled back content moderation and safeguards against the spread of misinformationBantering with Twitter followers late last year Musk expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO saying that person must like pain a lot to run a company that has been in the fast lane to bankruptcyNo one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive There is no successor Musk tweeted at the timeThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever