Elon Musk names Linda Yaccarino new Twitter CEO

Elon Musk has named a new chief executive of Twitter, just over six months after his controversial takeover of the social media company.

The billionaire said Linda Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal, would oversee business operations at the site, which has been struggling to make money.

He said she would start in six weeks.

Mr Musk will remain involved as executive chairman and chief technology officer.

“Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,” he wrote on Twitter, confirming the decision a day after he had stoked speculation by writing that he had found a new boss without revealing their identity.

Mr Musk – who bought the social media platform last year for $44bn – had been under pressure to find someone else to lead the company and refocus his attention on his other businesses, which include electric carmaker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX.

With less than 9% of Fortune 500 tech companies headed by women, Ms Yaccarino will become that rare example of a woman at the top of a major tech company, after rising steadily through the ranks of some of America’s biggest media companies.

A graduate of Penn State who now lives outside of New York City on Long Island, she worked at Turner Entertainment for 15 years before joining NBCUniversal,where she oversaw roughly 2,000 people, and was involved with the launch of its streaming service.

Her work has been marked by close collaborations with big brands, finding opportunities for product placement and convincing them to advertise alongside television shows – even adult ones such as Sex and the City.

A 2005 profile in an industry publication portrayed her as a busy, working married mother-of-two children, then aged 13 and 9.

“I have absolutely no hobbies,” she said at the time.

Ms Yaccarino brings to Twitter a deep background in advertising, which the social media company relies on to make money and which has dropped sharply since Mr Musk’s takeover.

“If Twitter are looking to monetise better than they have been, then that would be the place to start and Linda would be the ideal person to make that happen,” said Claire Atkinson, chief media correspondent at Business Insider, who has followed Ms Yaccarino’s career for two decades.

“She’s the kind of person that I can imagine Elon Musk needs,” Ms Atkinson added. “She won’t be rolled over.”

When Mr Musk first started discussing his plans for Twitter last year, he said he wanted to reduce the platform’s reliance on advertising and make changes to the way it moderated content.

He also said he wanted to expand the site’s functions to include payments, encrypted messaging and phone calls, turning it into something he called X.

Mr Musk fired thousands of staff upon his takeover, including people who had been tasked with dealing with abusive posts.

He has also overhauled the way the service authenticates accounts, charging for blue ticks in a move critics said would facilitate the spread of misinformation.

Some of the changes raised concerns among advertisers, worried about risks to their brands, who subsequently halted spending on the site.

Mr Musk has acknowledged “massive” declines in revenue, though he told the BBC last month that companies were returning.

At an advertising conference last month, where Ms Yaccarino interviewed Mr Musk, she reminded him of the challenges he faced winning the industry’s trust.

“The people in this room are your accelerated path to profitability,” she said. “But there’s a decent bit of sceptics in the room.

“There’s people who cannot separate, they’re challenged by separating, the man, his opinions and the microphone he now owns.”

Ms Atkinson said she expected Ms Yaccarino to bring her experience in television to bear on the transformation.

“It could evolve into something that is less of a micro-blog and more of a video streaming platform as it used to be,” she said.

Her departure appeared to take NBCUniversal by surprise. On Thursday, amid media reports that she would be headed to Twitter, the firm had told news outlets that she was busy preparing for an upcoming conference.

“Linda has made countless contributions to the company during her 12-year tenure, and we wish her the best,” the company said on Friday.