“Elon Musk to Step Down as Twitter CEO in Coming Weeks, Ending Controversial Tenure”
Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, has announced his decision to step down from the post after a few weeks. In a tweet on Friday, Musk declared that he had hired a new CEO for X/Twitter, who will take charge in about six weeks. Although he did not name the person, reports suggest that NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino is in talks to replace him.
Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022 and indicated that he would only be in charge for a limited time to complete the organizational overhaul he thought the company needed to prosper. He complained of having “too much work” and sleeping at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters while implementing radical changes.
The billionaire will remain executive chairman after the transition and will oversee products, software, and sysops in the foreseeable future. Musk has also said he wants to build Twitter beyond social media and into an “everything app,” including financial services.
The next CEO will have to deal with the fallout from Musk’s ownership, including an advertiser exodus. Despite a slight uptick in daily users since early 2022, Twitter’s revenue has fallen by 50% since October as a result of a “massive decline” in advertising.
Yaccarino, who is chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal Media, has a friendly relationship with Musk, who interviewed her last month at a major advertising conference in Miami, and called her “friend” and “buddy” on stage. Recently, Twitter and NBCU expanded their Olympic Games partnership.
If Yaccarino becomes the CEO of Twitter, she will have to revive the company’s Twitter Blue subscription service plan, which has been flailing, drawing less than 1% of the user base. Musk has cut thousands of jobs, scaled back the company’s content moderation, and allowed accounts previously banned for breaking rules to return.
The news of Musk’s decision to step down as Twitter CEO has generated mixed reactions, with some welcoming the move, while others expressing concern about the future of the company.
