Elon Musk to be Replaced by NBCUniversal Exec as Twitter CEO: WSJ
- The billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, plans to step down as the chief executive of the social media platform Twitter.
- The entrepreneur acquired Twitter in late 2022 at a price of $54.20 per share for a total of $44 billion and named himself CEO.
- The new CEO of Twitter is starting in six months, by late June or early July, and as per Musk, it’s a woman.
- Citing a credible source, the WSJ stated that NBCUniversal and WEF executive Linda Yaccarino might be the new CEO.
- Elon Musk stated that he will move to the position of executive chairman and CTO to oversee products and software.
One of the richest people on Earth, Elon Musk, continues to make headlines following his acquisition of social media platform Twitter in late 2022, after careful reconsideration and in partnership with the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance. Interestingly, post-acquisition, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX named himself the CEO of Twitter as well. However, the entrepreneur now plans to step down as the chief executive of the firm, which was removed from public listing by the billionaire last year.
According to the official announcement from Elon Musk via his official Twitter account, a new woman has been hired as the CEO of X Corp., the parent company of the social media platform, who will also replace the billionaire as the CEO of Twitter in late June or early July. It is important to mention here that the name of the newly elected executive for the platform hasn’t been revealed.
On the other hand, as per a report from the Wall Street Journal, the head of advertising at NBCUniversal, an American multinational mass media and entertainment firm, Linda Yaccarino, was in talks to be selected as the candidate for the position. The members of the crypto community were not happy with this news, claiming that Elon Musk hadn’t made the right choice if he selected Yaccarino as the Twitter head.
Yaccarino, the likely Twitter CEO, is also a World Economic Forum Executive Chair and a supporter of Big Pharma. She recently tried to convince Elon Musk to commit to self-censorship and urged him to allow advertisers to feel that they can “influence” Twitter. In an interview with the billionaire in April during an advertisement conference in Miami, the NBCUniversal executive stated that advertisers “need to feel there’s an opportunity for them to influence what you’re building.”
In the interview, Yaccarino tried to push Elon Musk to self-censor by not tweeting after 3 am. While he did agree to limit himself to some extent, he pushed back against the executive’s attempts to hinder his speech.
“If I were to say, ‘Yes, you can influence me,’ that would be wrong,” Musk said. “That would be very wrong because that would be a diminishment of freedom of speech.”
In the interview, the billionaire made it very clear that he was not content with the fact that letting advertisers influence Twitter would be a good idea. However, Yaccarino continued to push the topic, adding that “influencing” is “more of an open feedback loop” for advertisers to “help develop Twitter into a place where they will be excited about investing” in areas such as “product development, ad safety, and content moderation.”
Elon Musk pointed out in the announcement that he would assume the role of Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to oversee product, software, and systems operations.
As reported earlier by Bitnation, the billionaire and one of the founding members of PayPal purchased Twitter last year at a price tag of $44 billion, i.e., at $54.20 per share, with the social media giant having approximately 765 million outstanding shares at that time.
Moreover, Binance and a series of other investment firms supported Musk’s takeover bid, with the exchange’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ in the crypto industry, wishing to bring “social media and Web3 together and broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.”