Elon Musk Announces NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino to Become New CEO of Twitter

Elon Musk on Friday took to Twitter to announce the identify of the brand new Twitter CEO. As his tweets confirmed, NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino has been employed to take over Musk’s function because the CEO of the social media firm. Sharing about her job obligations at Twitter, Musk talked about that her she’s going to take care of enterprise operations, whereas engaged on remodeling the social media platform into X, the every little thing app. The billionaire, then again, will take care of the product design and new expertise. 

Yaccarino is the former NBCUniversal promoting chief, who modernized the Comcast leisure and media division’s promoting enterprise and had been in talks for the job earlier than NBC introduced her departure Friday morning.

Since Musk acquired Twitter in October, advertisers have fled the platform, anxious that their adverts might seem subsequent to inappropriate content material after the corporate misplaced practically 80 % of workers. Musk earlier this yr acknowledged that Twitter suffered an enormous decline in advert income.

Twitter’s “trajectory will instantly take a 180-degree flip” underneath her management, mentioned Lou Paskalis, a long-time advert trade government and CEO of AJL Advisory, a advertising consultancy.

Musk axed hundreds of workers, rushed the launch of a subscription product that allowed scammers to impersonate main manufacturers and suspended customers with whom he disagreed.

“I feel (Yaccarino) has climbed each mountain she might at NBCU and did it impeccably effectively. And there is no higher problem than restoring order at Twitter,” he mentioned.

Yaccarino couldn’t be reached for remark.

Her exit is one other huge blow to NBCUniversal. Final month, NBC father or mother Comcast mentioned NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell was leaving after acknowledging an inappropriate relationship with a lady within the firm, following a grievance that prompted an investigation.

Promoting President Mark Marshall will step in as interim chairman of NBCUniversal’s promoting and partnerships group. Marshall was named president of advert gross sales and partnerships in 2018, overseeing NBC’s broadcast leisure, sports activities and superior promoting gross sales.

Yaccarino’s exit comes at a troublesome time for NBCUniversal, which is making ready for its annual upfront presentation to advertisers on Monday at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor.

Yaccarino joined NBCU in 2011, after 15 years at Turner Leisure, and has been credited with taking the community’s advert gross sales operation into the digital period.

As broadcast tv audiences migrated to streaming, she took to the stage at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor final yr to inform advertisers their model messages weren’t an afterthought. She mentioned NBCUniversal integrated adverts in its Peacock streaming service from the outset.

“Twitter wants credibility with the promoting group,” mentioned Greg Kahn, chief government of GK Digital Ventures media consultancy. “Linda has demonstrated her belief, her progressive nature of bringing new companions to the desk and a deep bench of relationships.”

Musk, the CEO of electrical car maker Tesla, accomplished his buy of Twitter in October. He mentioned in December that he would step apart as CEO as soon as he discovered “somebody silly sufficient to take the job.”

On Thursday, Musk tweeted that he had discovered a CEO with out naming Yaccarino. One individual near Yaccarino mentioned Musk’s tweet might effectively have accelerated the timetable for her to hitch Twitter, which might be a balm to Tesla shareholders.

Shares of Tesla have been down 1.3 % on Friday, as analysts commented {that a} CEO rent would permit Musk to focus on the EV enterprise. Comcast shares have been little modified.

© Thomson Reuters 2023