New York, San Francisco The short message service Twitter will soon be run by a woman for the first time. The owner and current CEO Elon Musk himself confirmed in a message on Twitter on Friday that media manager Linda Yaccarino will succeed him. Musk announced his resignation as head of the social network on Thursday.
“I am pleased to announce that I have hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. It will start in about six weeks,” the billionaire wrote on the short message service. Nevada-based X Corp is the new company that now operates Twitter. Now he made the personnel official after the US media “Wall Street Journal” and the “New York Times” had reported accordingly. Yaccarino previously managed the advertising business at the US media group NBC Universal.
On Friday, the company announced that the manager is leaving NBC Universal, effective immediately. A reason was not initially given. Last month, Yaccarino interviewed Elon Musk while still onstage at an event in Miami.
The media manager has known the Twitter owner for a long time.
(Photo: dpa)
NBC Universal includes the television network NBC and the Hollywood studio Universal Pictures, it is one of the most influential media companies in the USA. The company is a subsidiary of the Comcast group. In the past financial year, the company reported sales of around 40 billion US dollars.
Yaccarino isn’t the first woman to hold a senior position at a company controlled by Elon Musk. President of Musk’s space company SpaceX is Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell. Musk himself is also the head of technology at SpaceX and is also CEO of the company, and his influence on day-to-day business is great. Musk will also limit himself to the role of Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer on Twitter, and will take care of the product, software and hardware systems.
As the new head of Twitter, Yaccarino would have no management experience at technology companies. Her core competency is dealing with powerful advertisers. Among other things, she played a central role in the launch of the advertising-financed streaming service Peacock. In 2021, the last fiscal year before Elon Musk bought it, Twitter made around 90 percent of its revenue from ads.
Musk, on the other hand, has so far positioned himself clearly against an advertising-financed revenue model. In the first few weeks, he frightened off numerous advertising customers – the most important source of income. Musk has consistently called himself an “free speech absolutist” and, among other things, disbanded an advisory panel on preventing hate speech.
Politicians announced a review of politically extreme news on the platform. Last Tuesday, controversial right-wing presenter Tucker Carlson said he would continue his show on Twitter after being fired from Fox News.
However, in a recent interview with the British TV broadcaster BBC, Musk emphasized that the majority of advertisers have now returned.
Elon Musk caused chaos on Twitter
After months of back and forth, Musk took over Twitter at the end of October 2022 for $44 billion, fired the previous management staff and announced that he would radically restructure the company.
Since Musk’s takeover, around 5,000 of Twitter’s once 7,500 employees have left, most involuntarily. Musk had said he would focus on Twitter’s technology. Musk did not announce many of his decisions in advance, surprising Twitter users and partners and causing chaos. Musk reversed some particularly polarizing decisions after a short time.
According to his own statement, the billionaire wants to give up his position as head of Twitter again.
(Photo: mauritius images (M))
In December, he warned that Twitter was on track to post $3 billion in negative cash flow. Twitter has been in the red for the past ten years. Musk had taken out a $13 billion loan for the acquisition. The cost of interest alone is said to amount to a billion dollars a year.
Elon Musk announces successor for CEO posts on Twitter
Musk then announced in December 2022 that he would hand over day-to-day management of the social media platform. He launched a poll on Twitter, with a majority of respondents voting for his resignation as CEO. Musk then tweeted that he would step down if he found someone “dumb enough” to take over. Musk then announced in February 2023 that he would likely step down from the CEO post later this year.
>> Read also: Bluesky: With this platform, Twitter founder Dorsey challenges Elon Musk
As introduced by Musk, the Twitter press office responded to a Handelsblatt inquiry about the process with an automatically generated message including a “heap of feces emoji”.
Tesla investors react with relief to Musk’s resignation
Musk’s role in the events surrounding the Twitter takeover has significantly damaged the billionaire’s reputation in recent months. Tesla shareholders complained that Musk’s leadership of Twitter is distracted and neglecting important issues at his electric-car maker.
Musk also withdrew numerous employees from Tesla, for example from the important Autopilot project, to help out on Twitter. He also had to sell Tesla stock to fund the Twitter acquisition. In December, he sold $3.58 billion worth of stock. Since it became known that Musk would have to sell Tesla shares in order to buy it on a large scale, the price of the electric car manufacturer has fallen significantly.
On Thursday, Tesla shareholders reacted with relief to the announcement that Musk would soon give up leadership of Twitter. The stock rose after Musk’s tweet, closing up 2.3 percent.
More: Tesla boss wants to use AI for self-driving cars.
First publication: May 11, 2023, 10:15 p.m. (last updated: May 12, 2023, 6:45 p.m.)