(Updated) Elon Musk Says a New Twitter CEO Has Been Chosen

Elon Musk announced yesterday that he has finally found someone to replace him as the CEO of Twitter. The exec didn’t reveal the name of the mysterious new CEO but said that they will start in around six weeks.

Musk said back in December that he was ready to resign as soon as found “someone foolish enough to take the job.” He later said in February that expected to find someone by the end of the year when the company would be “in stable condition.”

Well, Twitter still has a lot of issues to deal with, but Musk won’t be leaving the company anytime soon. “My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops,” Musk tweeted.

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

According to the Wall Street Journal, the next CEO of Twitter could be Linda Yaccarino, who has just left her head of advertising position at NBCUniversal. “Ms. Yaccarino has a reputation for hard-nosed negotiating tactics, and media buyers have described her as the “velvet hammer,” the WSJ reports.

Musk’s unpredictable behavior certainly doesn’t help to convince advertisers to spend any money on Twitter ads, but a change in management could definitely help on that front. In recent months, Musk also pushed hard to increase revenue coming from Twitter’s subscriptions, with mixed results.

Last month, the confusion around the removal of Twitter’s legacy verified checkmarks was so bad that Twitter quickly gave back their checkmarks to high-profile accounts. Musk also admitted that he personally paid for the Twitter Blue subscription of Lebron James and other celebrities who said that he wouldn’t pay for Twitter Blue.

Update: Musk has now confirmed that Linda Yaccarino will be the new CEO of Twitter. “Linda 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 said.

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