Elon Musk appoints Linda Yaccarino as new chief executive of the social network

A new face for Twitter. Elon Musk announced on Friday, May 12, that he had appointed Linda Yaccarino, until then responsible for advertising within the NBCUniversal group, as the new general manager of Twitter, six months after having bought the social network.

“She will focus mainly on business, while I will take care of product design and new technologies”, he said in a tweet. The day before, the billionaire had announced qhe had hired a general manager to replace him at the head of the platform, without revealing his identity. But, in the process, The Wall Street Journal (in English) Then The Washington Post (in English) spilled the beans.

A media and advertising specialist

Aged 59, Linda Yaccarino “has spent her entire career in the media, first with the Turner Group and then at NBCUniversal, where she has held senior advertising positions for ten years”details The world (article subscribers). She “has cultivated in his career a reputation for seriousness, expertise and above all performance”adds The Parisian. She is nevertheless controversial for having been an adviser to former US President Donald Trump for two years.

This news is not a surprise. The boss of Tesla and SpaceX had done a survey in December to ask Twitter users whether or not he should quit running the platform. Some 17 million of them had spoken, including 57% in favor of his departure. After procrastinating, Elon Musk tweeted that he planned to step down as soon as he had “found someone crazy enough” to succeed him.