Global Courant 2023-05-12 22:26:29
Former NBCUniversal advertising director Linda Yaccarino will take over as CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk said Friday.
Musk, who runs Tesla and Space X, said a day earlier that he plans to move to a role as executive chairman and chief technology officer.
Yaccarino “will mainly focus on business operations, while I focus on product design and new technology,” Musk said Friday. “I look forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,” he added.
The announcement comes months after Musk pledged in December to step down as head of Twitter once he found someone “stupid enough to take the job.”
Yaccarino, who stepped down as head of advertising sales at NBCUniversal earlier Friday, led a global team of about 2,000 employees, according to the NBCUniversal website.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk, center, speaks with Linda Yaccarino, president of global advertising and partnerships for NBC, at the POSSIBLE marketing conference, April 18, 2023, in Miami Beach, Fla.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP, DOSSIER
It brings with it long-standing relationships with major advertisers and a strong reputation within the business community, experts told ABC News.
“She transformed advertising at NBCUniversal,” Mike Proulx, a vice president and director of research at Forrester, told ABC News. “If she succeeds, Twitter succeeds.”
Yaccarino spent nearly 12 years at NBCUniversal and rose through the leadership ranks to become president of global advertising and partnerships in 2020.
Before NBCUniversal, Yaccarino spent nearly 20 years as an advertising executive at Turner Broadcasting Company.
After acquiring Twitter in October, Musk has sought to bolster the company’s finances by cutting costs and increasing revenue through a revamped version of its subscription service.
Yaccarino’s hiring, however, suggests a renewed focus on advertising, which accounts for the vast majority of Twitter’s revenue, Dan Ives, a director of equity research at Wedbush, an investment firm, told ABC News.
“The heart and lungs of Twitter’s monetization are ads, and Musk realizes that’s not going to change,” Ives said. “He needs an ad guru front and center in charge of Twitter.”
This is an evolving story. Check back later for updates.
