CONFIRMED

It’s Official: Musk Says Former NBC Exec Linda Yaccarino Is New Twitter CEO

The Friday announcement confirmed swirling rumors after Yaccarino resigned as NBCUniversal’s global advertising chief.

Elon Musk confirmed Friday that Linda Yaccarino, who just resigned as NBCUniversal’s global advertising chief, will be taking over as Twitter’s new CEO sometime in June.

The announcement wasn’t a shock—rumors had been swirling since Thursday afternoon that Musk was calling on Yaccarino to right the flailing social media giant, which has been draining money with Musk at the helm.

Musk said Thursday he’ll still handle “product design” and “new technology,” while Yaccarino will “focus primarily on business operations.”

The billionaire also teased that Yaccarino will lead Twitter as it rebrands to being “X,” which Musk claims will be the “everything app.”

Musk announced Thursday that a mystery woman would be the new CEO of Twitter, but didn’t say who. The The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that Yaccarino—who has posted some flattering tweets about Musk recently—was the billionaire’s pick for a successor.

Officially, Musk says his new title will be Twitter’s “executive chair” and “chief technology officer,” though he’s sure to have a say on just about every major decision—something he’s done to the platform’s peril since he purchased it for $44 billion last October.

Musk became infamous at Twitter for making sweeping changes on a whim, scaring off advertisers and crushing the platform’s credibility by eliminating profile verification for notable figures and organizations.

The Journal reported that Yaccarino oversaw roughly $13 billion in annual ad revenue in her old gig at NBCUniversal, saying the exec “has a reputation for hard-nosed negotiating tactics.” This toughness reportedly earned her the nickname the “velvet hammer.”

Yaccarino arrives as Twitter desperately needs an advertising guru. The Journal reports that 37 of the platform’s top 100 advertisers before Musk’s takeover didn’t spend a penny on the platform in the first quarter of this year. Another 24 of those brands reportedly reduced their average monthly ad spending by 80 percent or more with Twitter in the same period.

The next disaster-in-waiting appears to be Musk’s dream of rebranding Twitter to simply “X” or “X Corp,” a move to transform the company from a social network to a de facto search engine with commentary and messaging. He envisions Twitter being the place people go to book tickets, send messages and make mobile payments, he’s previously said.

Musk has called his pricey purchase of Twitter—and its user base—an “accelerant” for forming X. It appears he’s already laid some of the groundwork for the daunting transition, buying X.com domain and setting up several Delaware-based companies with different variations on the name X Holding, Quartz reported.

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Josh FialloBreaking News Reporter

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