Elon Musk has announced that he will soon be stepping down as CEO of Twitter. The multi-billionaire wrote in the short message service that he had recruited a successor who would take office in about six weeks. At first, he made a secret of who it was. On Friday, he revealed that it will be Linda Yaccarino, who previously led the advertising business of Comcast-owned film and television studio NBC Universal. They announced Yaccarino's immediate resignation on Friday.

Roland Lindner

Business correspondent in New York.

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Musk wrote that Yaccarino will primarily take care of business affairs at Twitter. According to his own statement, he himself will remain closely involved even after a change of leadership. He said he wants to lead Twitter's board of directors as chairman and also be responsible for product development, among other things, as chief technology officer.

Musk has been the owner of Twitter since last October and also its CEO. He immediately dismissed the previous incumbent, Parag Agrawal. Musk has repeatedly said he doesn't want the job permanently, but recently it seemed hard 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. 58 percent of the votes were in favor of resignation.

Tesla benefits

However, he then expressed doubts about his imminent resignation and said he would not resign until "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 a change in leadership, which came shortly before the close of trading on Thursday, immediately pleased the shareholders of the electric car manufacturer Tesla, also led by Musk. Its share price rose by 2 percent on Thursday. The stock was also up on Friday. Many observers had expressed concern that Musk was letting Twitter distract him too much from his other tasks.

The entrepreneur has a large empire. In addition to Tesla, he also leads the space specialist SpaceX. There he already forms a management team with a woman. He is chairman of the board, but Gwynne Shotwell leads the day-to-day operations as chief operating officer and is considered a strong number two. Musk has also founded the Boring Company, with which he plans to build transportation systems in tunnels, and Neuralink, a company with which he sets out to connect the human brain to computers. Recently, it became known that he has 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.

"Friend" and "Buddy"

Twitter has had a turbulent few months. Musk has radically cut staff after the takeover. Many advertisers avoid the platform because they fear that the rules for content moderation could be relaxed too much. The recruitment of Linda Yaccarino could be a signal from Musk that he wants to repair the tense relationship with advertisers.

Yaccarino has been with NBC Universal for more than ten years. She was responsible for advertising and partnerships with other companies, including Twitter. An alliance between NBC Universal and Twitter for next year's Olympic Games has just been announced.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that Yaccarino is known as a tough negotiator and is described in the industry as a "hammer of velvet". She also seems to have a close relationship with Musk so far. At a conference in Miami in April, she conducted an interview with him on stage. She called him "friend" and "buddy" and gushed that he had at least as much work ethic as she did.