Twitter is now apparently on the verge of a change of leadership: Elon Musk announced on Thursday that he has found a new CEO for the online platform. She will take over her task in about six weeks. At first, he did not reveal who it was. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, it could be Linda Yaccarino who runs the advertising business of the film and television studio NBC Universal, which belongs to the Comcast Group. The newspaper wrote that Yaccarino was in talks for the top job at Twitter.
Roland Lindner
Business correspondent in New York.
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Musk himself says he will lead the board of directors as chairman in the future and will also be responsible for product development, among other things, as chief technology officer.
Musk has been the owner of Twitter since last October and has since also held the post of chairman of the board, and he immediately dismissed the previous incumbent, Parag Agrawal. He has repeatedly said that he does not want the task permanently, but in recent months it seemed difficult for him to let go of it.
In December, he launched a poll among Twitter users on whether he should resign, and he promised to accept the vote. According to the result displayed on Twitter, a majority of almost 58 percent of the vote was in favor of resigning. While the survey was still running, he expressed doubts that he would be able to find a successor.
He tweeted, "No one who can really keep Twitter alive wants this job." He also said he would resign "as soon as I find someone stupid enough to take the job." In February, he said at a conference that he would probably relinquish the chairmanship towards the end of the year. Until then, he wants to try to "stabilize" Twitter and bring it to a "financially healthy place."
The announcement of an imminent change in leadership immediately pleased the shareholders of the electric car manufacturer Tesla, also led by Musk, whose share price rose by around two percent. In recent months, many observers have expressed concern that Musk is being too distracted from his other responsibilities by Twitter.
The 51-year-old entrepreneur has a large empire. In addition to Tesla, he also leads the space specialist SpaceX. He has also founded the Boring Company, with which he wants to build transport systems in tunnels, and Neuralink, a company with which he sets out to digitally upgrade the human brain and connect it to computers. Just a few weeks ago, it became known that he had registered a new company called "X.AI". The name suggests that this project revolves around artificial intelligence. Twitter itself was recently merged with an X Corp.