OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Thursday announced he has selected someone to take over his role as CEO of Twitter, but she was immediately castigated by conservatives on the platform.
Musk shared on Friday morning that he has chosen longtime NBCUniversal ad sales chief Linda Yaccarino.
“I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter! [Linda Yacc] will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology. Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,” Musk tweeted on Friday.
In a tweet on Thursday, Musk said, “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”
I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.
Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app. https://t.co/TiSJtTWuky
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2023
Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!
My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that Yaccarino was in talks with Musk about the position. The outlet went on to report that she has left her position at NBCUniversal.
“Ms. Yaccarino had been chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU. She was with NBCU for more than a decade, where she has been an industry advocate for finding better ways to measure the effectiveness of advertising. As head of NBCU’s advertising sales, she was key in the launch of the company’s ad-supported Peacock streaming service,” the outlet reported.
On Friday, Yaccarino said in a statement: “It has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team.”
Responses to Musk’s apparent choice ranged on his platform, but conservative users are clearly worried about Yaccarino’s perceived ‘wokeness’ and have openly wondered if shadow bans of their content will become commonplace again.
Meet Linda Yaccarino, the new CEO of Twitter.
In 2020 interview, Yaccarino praised Jeff Shell and Brian Roberts, her bosses for taking the right steps to “fight social justice and equality”. Also, Yaccarino commended her company’s progress of hiring “50% of women and 50% people… pic.twitter.com/u73vrpnEmA— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) May 12, 2023
Elon Musk bringing the WEF associated Linda Yaccarino on as Twitter CEO is no surprise. If you don't know who the World Economic Forum is, learn. They told you their plans with their own mouths. So, why is it a "conspiracy theory"?
My full video: https://t.co/r18dBGoBv3 pic.twitter.com/hY4ZCUyqQv
— Tyler Hagen (@JTylerHagen) May 12, 2023
BREAKING: The New Female Twitter CEO @elonmusk is reportedly talking to is Linda Yaccarino, who according to LinkedIn is currently the Executive Chair for the World Economic Forum—and was Chairman of Advertising at NBC Universal pic.twitter.com/RD9G0d6T10
— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) May 12, 2023
BREAKING: Twitter's new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, is currently the Executive Chair for the World Economic Forum, and was Chairman of Advertising at NBC Universal. pic.twitter.com/Ea0958K9ta
— Pat Webb (@patwebbjr) May 12, 2023
BREAKING: Linda Yaccarino is in talks to become the new CEO of Twitter, according to people familiar with the situation.
– WSJ pic.twitter.com/KToHRCamos
— T(w)itter Daily News (@TitterDaily) May 11, 2023
Twitter’s new CEO is enraging both the far left because Linda Yaccarino reads the great journalist Miranda Divine, and the dodgy right is max because Yaccarino belongs to particular networking groups. That’s a great sign it’s the right candidate, @elonmusk!
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 12, 2023
Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc), the woman who is reportedly the new CEO of Twitter, follows:
– Chaya Raichik
– Jesse Watters
– Michael Shellenberger
– Ron DeSantis
– The Babylon Bee
– Giorgia Meloni
– Maye Musk
– Catturd
– Vivek Ramaswamy
– Tulsi Gabbard
– Bari Weiss— Max Berger (@maxberger) May 11, 2023
This is my position as well. Whoever’s in charge as CEO will have to deal with advertisers, and that frees up a lot of time for Elon to work on the product as CTO—features are forthcoming and the algorithm needs a keen eye. At the end of the day, he’s still in charge. https://t.co/24jG9zJOrI
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 12, 2023
BREAKING: It appears that the new CEO of Twitter will be Linda Yaccarino, if the Wall Street Journal’s reporting is correct.
People are already unfairly attacking her for her ties to different organizations and because she follows certain accounts here on Twitter.
The new CEO… pic.twitter.com/Cm6WKRAqEy
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) May 12, 2023
The WSJ noted further:
Ms. Yaccarino would face immediate challenges as CEO, including wooing back advertisers who have typically provided the bulk of Twitter’s revenue. In 2021, the year before Mr. Musk took Twitter private, advertising accounted for nearly 90% of the company’s revenue. Twitter’s revenue and adjusted earnings dropped by approximately 40% year-over-year in December, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. Mr. Musk said in April that Twitter could be cash-flow positive as soon as this quarter.
Of the top 100 advertisers on Twitter before Mr. Musk bought the company, 37 spent nothing on Twitter advertising during the first quarter of this year, according to market-intelligence firm Sensor Tower, while an additional 24 brands reduced their average monthly Twitter ad spending by 80% or more.
In December, reports noted that Musk was “actively looking” for a new CEO to replace him as the head of the microblogging site after he posted a poll asking users if they wanted him to remain, which most said they did not, leading Musk to claim it was rigged by bots.
“Musk is actively looking for a new CEO of Twitter,” CNBC reporter David Faber said. “As we’ve seen from his previous polls, oftentimes he actually already knows the answer before he asks people to participate in the poll, and that would appear to be the case here as well. Everything I have heard, he has been actively looking, asking, trying to figure out who the candidate pool might actually be.”
“The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive,” Musk noted on the platform.
Farber noted further:
The final tally showed that 57.5 percent of the 17,502,391 votes wanted Musk to step down as CEO, while 42.5 percent did not. In tweeting the poll on Sunday, Musk said he would “abide by the results of this poll.” Musk has suggested that the poll was rigged by bots and said that only Twitter Blue subscribers, who pay $8 a month to have a blue checkmark next to their account homepage, will be allowed to vote in polls about Twitter policy changes going forward. Nonetheless, Musk had previously said he would not permanently be CEO.
“I frankly don’t want to be the CEO of any company,” Musk told a court in November during a trial related to electric vehicle maker Tesla, which he also heads up.
