Elon Musk hires new CEO, here’s why he picked this person

Twitter which now could be called X, after Elon Musk merged the entity with shell firm X Corp has hired a new CEO.

Various industry sources point to Linda Yaccarino as the incoming CEO who should take over to steer the ship in six weeks.

Musks’ new title will be executive chair and CTO overseeing product and software.

Excited to announce that I’ve 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

Who is she?

Yaccarino’s day job involves being chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU one of the worlds leading media and entertainment companies in development production, marketing and entertainment.

With more than a decade, she has advertising expertise, is chair of the Advertising Council board of directors, chairman of the World Economic Forum task force and global chair of Ymu, a British talent-management group.

Musk could have hired her to help woo advertisers, which could arguably be one of Musks’ weaknesses.

Yaccarino could assist court advertisers including use her contacts with businessmen, politicians and celebrities to help strengthen Twitter’s image including investment pull.

Yaccarino was once associated to former President Donald Trump

She succeeds Parag Agrawal who was fired right after Musk took over Twitter.  Musk also fired other senior leaders and laid off half his staff last November.

What do we know?

Yaccarino ahead of Musk’s big announcement urged users to jump on to propose solutions to help Twitter 2.0 take flight.

On her account, she wrote:

The MMA Global POSSIBLE conference was complete proof that when our industry engages in direct and productive dialogue, and embraces meaningful partnership, anything is, well, POSSIBLE.

We heard very clearly this week that Twitter is committed to freedom of speech (not freedom of reach), accountability, and ultimate transparency. Those are things we can all get behind.

Now, as creators of culture and conversation on Twitter, all of us in the media and marketing industry have a responsibility to do our part. The door is open to give feedback and help improve this platform — that’s beloved by hundreds of millions of people around the world — all our consumers and fans.

So, let’s all jump in and keep proposing solutions to help Twitter 2.0 take flight (pun completely intended.) That’s what true partnership looks like.

Personally, I’m committed to keeping this conversation going and working with Elon, the entire Twitter team, teams across NBCUniversal, CMOs, publishers, tech partners, and more.

Thank you, Elon for your time and transparency, and for taking action alongside the advertising community.

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