Just as it looked as if Elon Musk would have to spend the rest of the year running Twitter, the workaholic entrepreneur has found someone to replace him at the helm.
The news announced by Musk himself late on Thursday no doubt is balm to the soul of many Tesla investors, given fears he was spending too much time trying to keep his social media platform afloat to pay attention to the burgeoning issues at his carmaker.
According to several media reports, the job is going to Linda Yaccarinowho has just quit NBCUniversal.
The chair of global advertising and partnerships at Comcasts NBC Universal manages a staff of about 2,000 employeeslarger than Twiters own workforcewhere she oversees all advertising, partnerships and marketing. She also is responsible for the monetization strategy behind the companys Peacock ad-supported streaming service.
That makes her ideally placed to credibly coax advertisers back to the platform, a fact veteran tech reporter Kara Swisher pointed out when she predicted her appointment over other candidates like Sheryl Sandberg and Susan Wojcicki.
Excited to announce that Ive 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
Linda Yaccarino was early to tech focus for a media exec, which was unusual at the time and she was constantly trying to grok it, despite wariness, Swisher posted on Thursday, citing her organization of a tech event all the way back in late 2014. Shes obviously not a media luddite, as many were at the time.
Yaccarino says she is inspired by provocative leadership
Given Musks past criticism that ex-CEO Parag Agrawal and many of his team barely used their own product, it might be somewhat surprising Yaccarino isnt a prolific Twitter user either.
But Musk himself is the exception: few executives comment on Twitter and when they do they often rely on executive communications assistants that ghostwrite their social media posts to ensure close alignment with their companys key strategic messaging.
Only about 1,200 tweets are posted to Yaccarinos timeline, retweets included, and she follows roughly the same number of accounts including well-known conservative accounts like Libs of TikTok but also Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Fortune as well.
Her profile describes her as inspired by provocative leadership, which certainly seems to be a good fit with Musk, known for his penchant for using Twitter to wind people up for fun.
When she tweets it is often related to fashion, women in tech or sports such as the Kentucky Derby that was recently broadcast by her network (leaving out references to the seven horses euthanized that weekend).
By far her most popular tweet, however, was a link to a session with advertising execs she moderated in April, where Musk was invited to explain his Twitter 2.0 plans.
Shes interviewed Musk and knows all about the challenges he faces
In the 45-minute talk, she praised his vision for a social media platform that would create attractive communities for companies, where users can talk about the brands they love and buy their good or service in one easy click.
Yet she also reminded Musk about the primacy of trust for the ad buyers in that room and their need not to fear products they placed feature prominently next to examples of hate speech.
In this vein, the NBC Universal exec urged him to reinstate Twitters disbanded Trust & Safety Council as a recurring feedback loop for ad execs, to feel more comfortable buying virtual space on his platform.
We can all agree this freedom of speech, deserves a bit more reach. Heres my full chat with @elonmusk at @PossibleEvent. https://t.co/JwPzHOgi9s
Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) April 20, 2023
The people in this room are your accelerated path to profitability, she said, urging him to follow on his own advice and not post anything after 3 am.
Musk pushed back on any implicit suggestion he should bow to ad buyers that wanted him to tone down his more polarising views. Instead, he argued that just because he is the companys owner, he shouldnt be held to any higher standard than the average Twitter user.
I will aspire to tweet less after 3 am, but if I were to say yes, you could influence me, that would be wrong. That would be very wrong, because that would be a diminishment of freedom of speech, he shot back. If that means losing advertising dollars, we lose it.
Should Yaccarinio take on the top Twitter job, it is clear she knows exactly what the challenges it faces, is well acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of her future boss and will be going into the assignment eyes wide open.
