Elon Musk has announced his new Twitter CEO, NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino.
The billionaire said he was “thrilled” to announce the hiring of Ms Yaccarino – who he said will focus “primarily on business operations” at Chirping.
Musk, who completed a $44bn (£35bn) takeover of the social media site in October, also announced he would take over as executive chairman.
Linda Yaccarino will take over as CEO of Twitter in about six weeks, Musk says. photo: AP
THE Tesla AND SpaceX the boss said he would remain directly involved with Twitter as the company’s chief technology officer.
“I am thrilled to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter,” he said in a tweet on Friday.
“[She] will mainly focus on business operations, while I focus on product design and new technologies.
“I look forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the app for everything.”
He added that Ms Yaccarino will take on the role in about six weeks.
NBCUniversal said Ms. Yaccarino, the company’s head of global advertising and partnerships, will step down immediately.
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In December, the 51-year-old Musk said he would step down as CEO “as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job.”
This came after a poll on the social media site, in which 57.5% of users voted for him to leave the position he took after buying the platform last year.
Last month, Musk was reminded of the engagement during an impromptu BBC interview, where he said, “I’ve resigned. I keep telling you I’m not the CEO of Twitter, my dog is the CEO of Twitter.”
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Since taking over Twitter, Musk has regularly shed light on any controversies, but investors in Tesla have become increasingly concerned that he has spent too much time changing the platform.
During his first two weeks on the job, he quickly fired Twitter’s former CEO Parag Agrawal and other senior executives, only to fire half the staff in November.
In April, Twitter began removing the blue checkmarks from verified accounts, leaving some of the world’s best-known figures unverified.
The platform had around 300,000 users verified with the original blue check system, many of them athletes, musicians, journalists and other public figures.
