Elon Musk Reveals New Twitter CEO: Meet Linda Yaccarino

Less than a year after Elon Musk officially bought Twitter in a $44 billion deal, he's named ad exec Linda Yaccarino as the social media platform's new CEO.

By Jess Cohen May 12, 2023 5:25 PMTags
Watch: Elon Musk Announces He Has Hired New Twitter CEO

Here's some viral news for you: Elon Musk is no longer CEO of Twitter.

The SpaceX founder, who officially took over the social media platform back in October in a $44 billion deal, has announced that ad exec Linda Yaccarino will now be at the helm of the company.

"@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology," he tweeted May 12. "Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app."

A day before he unveiled Yaccarino as Twitter's CEO—she previously served as NBCUniversal's Chairman of Global Advertising and Partnerships—Musk teased the announcement in a message to his followers.

"She will be starting in ~6 weeks!" he wrote May 11. "My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops."

Yaccarino had a little more than 280 characters to say about her new chapter, too.

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"It has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team," she said in a May 12 statement as she exited the company. "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."

Theo Wargo/Getty Images, Paul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Following Yaccarino's departure, NBC has named Mark Marshall as her interim replacement.

Twitter's staffing update comes five months after Musk posted a poll on the platform, asking his followers on Dec. 18, "Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll."

The results? 57.5 percent voted Yes, while 42.5 percent voted No.

Given the outcome, Musk wrote in a follow-up tweet, "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."

(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)

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