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

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 position because the CEO of the social media firm. Sharing about her job obligations at Twitter, Musk talked about that her she is going to take care of enterprise operations, whereas engaged on remodeling the social media platform into X, the all the things app. The billionaire, alternatively, will take care of the product design and new know-how. 

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, apprehensive that their adverts might seem subsequent to inappropriate content material after the corporate misplaced practically 80 p.c of employees. Musk earlier this 12 months acknowledged that Twitter suffered a large decline in advert income.

Twitter’s “trajectory will immediately take a 180-degree turn” beneath her management, stated Lou Paskalis, a long-time advert trade govt and CEO of AJL Advisory, a advertising and marketing consultancy.

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

“I think (Yaccarino) has climbed every mountain she could at NBCU and did it impeccably well. And there’s no greater challenge than restoring order at Twitter,” he stated.

Yaccarino couldn’t be reached for remark.

Her exit is one other large blow to NBCUniversal. Last month, NBC mum or dad Comcast stated NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell was leaving after acknowledging an inappropriate relationship with a girl within the firm, following a criticism that prompted an investigation.

Advertising 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 tough time for NBCUniversal, which is getting ready for its annual upfront presentation to advertisers on Monday at Radio City Music Hall.

Yaccarino joined NBCU in 2011, after 15 years at Turner Entertainment, 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 City Music Hall final 12 months to inform advertisers their model messages weren’t an afterthought. She stated NBCUniversal integrated adverts in its Peacock streaming service from the outset.

“Twitter needs credibility with the advertising community,” stated Greg Kahn, chief govt of GK Digital Ventures media consultancy. “Linda has demonstrated her trust, her innovative nature of bringing new partners to the table and a deep bench of relationships.”

Musk, the CEO of electrical automobile maker Tesla, accomplished his buy of Twitter in October. He stated in December that he would step apart as CEO as soon as he discovered “someone foolish enough to take the job.”

On Thursday, Musk tweeted that he had discovered a CEO with out naming Yaccarino. One individual shut to Yaccarino stated Musk’s tweet might nicely have accelerated the timetable for her to be a part of Twitter, which might be a balm to Tesla shareholders.

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

© Thomson Reuters 2023