Elon Musk recently confirmed that he has chosen former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino as the next CEO of Twitter, ending a months-long search for a successor to lead the media platform.
I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.
Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app. https://t.co/TiSJtTWuky
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2023
Musk’s tweet came hours after NBCUniversal announced Yaccarino would leave her post as head of advertising “effective immediately.”
“It has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team,” Yaccarino said.
“We’ve transformed our company and the entire industry—and I am so proud of what we’ve accomplished together, and grateful to my colleagues and mentors, especially Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanagh and the entire NBCU leadership team,” she added.
Musk’s announcement marks the latest step in his “remodeling” of Twitter. For months, Musk has said he would step down from his position as Twitter CEO as soon as he found an appropriate replacement.
“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk tweeted in December 2022.
I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022
As CEO, Yaccarino must work by leading Twitter’s business as it encourages its “Twitter Blue” subscription service and other modern features. She must also boost relations with corporate advisers, who left the company in 2022 over Musk’s changes to account verification and content moderation.
After Musk announced Yaccarino would take over his position on Twitter, users expressed concerns that they would be “shadow-banned” again. Musk said that his decision would not result in such bans.
That will not be the case
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2023
In an interview with Musk, Yaccarino expressed the importance of influencing content moderation to help advertisers invest money in Twitter. While Musk appeared to accept her idea, he said advertisers should not be able to diminish free speech.
Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino wants to leverage content moderation to help make advertisers excited to invest more money in Twitter. Elon Musk seems to accept the idea, despite being unwilling to have his free speech diminished. pic.twitter.com/sv24bAh21p
— Expose Them (@ExposeDarkDeeds) May 12, 2023
Individuals on both sides of the political spectrum have criticized Yaccarino for her connection with the World Economic Forum (WEF), but some have said she may be more moderate than the WEF connection might suggest.
Vox reported that she supports former President Donald Trump and is conservative, a concept that has disturbed liberals.
“Although Yaccarino is not vocal about her political beliefs, it’s well known in the advertising community that she’s conservative, according to several sources. She served on former President Donald Trump’s Council on Sports and Nutrition, and many have noted that she likes and follows conservative accounts on Twitter,” the outlet reported.
According to recent court filings, Musk revealed that he merged Twitter into a firm called X Corp. He described his $44 billion purchase of Twitter as an “accelerant” for his plans to create an app called “X,” allowing users to access services ranging from food delivery payments and beyond.
