Musk made the announcement on Twitter on Friday
Ex-NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino will take over as CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk said on Friday.
Musk, who runs Tesla and Space X, said a day prior that he plans to transition to a role as executive chairman and chief technology officer.
Yaccarino “will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology,” Musk said on Friday. “Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,” he added.MORE: Elon Musk says he has chosen new Twitter CEO, will step down within weeks
The announcement comes months after Musk pledged in December to step down as the head of Twitter as soon as he found someone “foolish enough to take the job.”
Yaccarino, who stepped down earlier on Friday as the ad sales chief at NBCUniversal, oversaw an international team of about 2,000 employees, according to the NBCUniversal website.
She brings longstanding relationships with major advertisers and a strong reputation within the corporate community, experts told ABC News.
“She transformed advertising at NBCUniversal,” Mike Proulx, a vice president and research director at Forrester, told ABC News. “If she succeeds, Twitter succeeds.”
Yaccarino worked at NBCUniversal for nearly 12 years, rising through the executive ranks to become chairman of global advertising and partnerships in 2020.
Before NBCUniversal, Yaccarino served as an advertising executive at Turner Broadcasting Company for almost 20 years.
After acquiring Twitter in October, Musk has sought to shore up the company’s finances by slashing costs and expanding revenue through a revamped version of its subscription service.
The hiring of Yaccarino, however, suggests a renewed focus on advertising, which accounts for the vast majority of Twitter’s revenue, Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush, an investment firm, told ABC News.
“The heart and lungs of Twitter’s monetization is advertising and Musk realizes that’s not going to change,” Ives said. “He needs an advertising guru front and center leading the charge of Twitter.”
Recent Comments