Elon Musk has found a new CEO to run Twitter

Elon Musk tweeted that he has found a new CEO for Twitter, or X Corp. as it’s now officially called—and it’s a woman. He did not confirm a name but said she would start in about six weeks.

Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!

My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023

“My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops,” Musk tweeted.

Shares of Tesla were up by 2% after the announcement. Shareholders of his electric car company have been apprehensive that Twitter is taking up too much of Musk's attention.

Musk’s tenure at Twitter has been marked with periodic chaos. He began his first day in office by firing the company's board of directors, followed by roughly 80% of staff cuts, including the entire communications teams.

Since then, he has upended the platform's verification system, scaled back content moderation and safeguards against the spread of fake news and misinformation.

The current news does not come as a surprise. After taking over Twitter last fall in a US$44 billion deal, Musk made his intentions of not running the company in the long term very clear. In November 2022 he told a Delaware judge, that he did not want to be the CEO of any company.

A month later, he made the bantering public and said that the future CEO “must like pain a lot” to run a company that “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy”.

No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2022

Two days later, he tweeted: “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 he created himself and promised to abide by.

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Again in February, he remarked he was likely to appoint a new CEO toward the end of the year.

Though Musk did not name the new CEO, speculation is rife that NBCUniversal’s head of advertising Linda Yaccarino is in talks to take over the position. The two raised eyebrows last month when they appeared together in a joint keynote session in Miami. 

Twitter 2.0 discussion with Elon Musk at a recent MMA’s Possible Miami Event 2023. Photo: NBCUniversal Together

According to Wall Street Journal, Yaccarino, is the chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU and is known for her solid relations with marketers and ad agencies. A staunch advocate for finding better ways to measure advertising effectiveness, she has a reputation in the industry for her hard-nosed negotiating tactics with media buyers. She currently oversees US$13 billion in annual ad revenue at NBCU.

As head of NBCU’s advertising sales, she played a critical role in launching the company’s ad-supported Peacock streaming service and has been with NBCU for over a decade.