Musk Names Linda Yaccarino As New Twitter CEO

Tesla CEO and Twitter owner, Elon Musk, has named Ms Linda Yaccarino, as the new chief executive officer (CEO) of the microblogging platform.

Yaccarino is the former advertising chief at NBCUniversal. She will resume work at the social media platform in about six weeks.

The confirmation came after NBCUniversal said Ms Yaccarino was leaving “effective immediately”, after 12 years with the media company.

Musk posted on Thursday night that he had found a new CEO for Twitter, but did not reveal the identity.

Musk, who bought the social media platform last year for $44bn, had been under pressure to find someone else to lead the company and refocus his attention on his other businesses, which include electric carmaker Tesla and rocket firm, SpaceX.

Musk said he would remain involved at Twitter as executive chairman and chief technology officer.

At NBCUniversal, Ms Yaccarino oversaw roughly 2,000 people and was involved with the launch of its streaming service.

According to BBC, Ms Yaccarino joined the company in 2011, after 15 years at Turner Entertainment and has been credited with bringing the network’s ad sales operation into the digital future.

She will bring to Twitter a rich background in advertising, which the social media company relies on to make money and which has dropped sharply since Musk’s takeover.

“If Twitter is looking to monetise better than they have been, then that would be the place to start and Linda would be the ideal person to make that happen. She’s the kind of person that I can imagine Elon Musk needs. She won’t be rolled over”, said Claire Atkinson, chief media correspondent at Business Insider, who has followed Ms Yaccarino’s career for two decades.