UPDATED: Elon Musk claims he’s hired someone to replace him as CEO of Twitter. But for now, the tech tycoon isn’t revealing who that is.
“Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter,” the mega-billionaire tweeted Thursday. “She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”
Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s chairman, global advertising and partnerships, is said to be in talks to become Twitter’s CEO, PvNew reported.
Back in December, Musk said he would step aside as Twitter’s chief executive once he found “someone foolish enough” to take over the role. Even then, however, Musk — who’s also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX — will retain control of the social network and remain closely involved in running it. Musk recently officially renamed the company “X Corp.” as the parent of Twitter.
An email sent to Twitter’s PR account requesting additional info resulted in an autoreply with a poop emoji (a change Musk announced in March).
Musk closed a $44 billion deal for Twitter in October 2022, but he’s since said he now values the company at less than half that, at $20 billion.
Under Musk, Twitter has been been radically altered. He has cut Twitter’s headcount by more than 70%, from 7,500 to below 2,000; reinstated many users banned under Twitter’s previous regime,including Donald Trump; and partially eliminated Twitter’s legacy verification program, giving any paying subscriber a verified blue check-mark badge.
Earlier this week, Twitter was in the headlines after Tucker Carlson, following his ouster at Fox News, claimed he will launch a version of his cable show on the platform (which he called “the only” major platform that “allow[s] free speech”). Musk shortly afterward tweeted that Twitter does not have “a deal of any kind whatsoever” with Carlson and that he is “subject to the same rules & rewards of all content creators.” Carlson is attempting to nullify a noncompete agreement with Fox News, alleging the network broke certain promises to him, according to an Axios report.
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