Italian American Linda Yaccarino Landed Twitter CEO Job

Tech giant Elon Musk has officially named Italian American Linda Yaccarino, a seasoned media executive as the new CEO of Twitter. There was intense speculation over who Musk would appoint to lead the social media platform after announcing that he would step back as CEO. 

Musk took to Twitter to announce the news on Friday, May 12th saying, “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as 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.”

Yaccarino steps into her new role after announcing she is leaving her current position as chairman of Global Advertising and Partnerships at NBC Universal. As head of Advertising Sales, she was one of the key members who helped launch Peacock, NBC’s streaming service. Another notable achievement of Yaccarino was the creation of a unified ad sales team instead at NBC Universal. With this new team she brought in over $100 billion in ad sales revenue, forging partnerships with Apple News and Buzzfeed. 

Her new role does not come without its challenges. Under Elon Musk’s leadership, Twitter has become synonymous with chaos which caused large-scale layoffs. The company shrunk from 7,500 to 1,100 employees. As a result, advertisers panicked and paused paid ads within the social media platform. In response to the panic, Musk rolled out paid subscription services through Twitter Blue, although it has seen mixed responses.  

Yaccarino’s first tweet as CEO of Twitter states, "I've long been inspired by your vision to create a brighter future. I'm excited to help bring this vision to Twitter and transform this business together!" She then welcomed her new followers and said, “ Your feedback is VITAL to that future. I'm here for all of it. Let's keep the conversation going and build Twitter 2.0 together!"