Elon Musk, business magnate, said he had hired a new Twitter chief executive who would begin leading the social media platform in six weeks. The billionaire has been Twitter chief executive since his $44bn acquisition of the company in October but signaled his position would be temporary.
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Musk wrote on Twitter on Thursday: “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!”
Musk added that he would move to being executive chair and chief technology officer, “overseeing product, software and sysops [systems operations]”. He did not name the person he intended to appoint as chief executive.
According to the reports of the Wall Street Journal, Comcast NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino was in talks for the job.Yaccarino did not reply to an email seeking comment.
Musk and Yaccarino recently appeared together at a conference in Miami where they gave a keynote speech titled “Twitter 2.0: From Conversations to Partnerships”. They seemed to have a good rapport onstage, with Yaccarino displaying a flair for showmanship, according to people who saw the presentation.
The announcement comes as shareholders of Tesla, the electric-car maker that Musk also runs, have increasingly put pressure on him to return his focus to that company. Tesla’s stock jumped about 2 per cent on news of the Twitter chief.
Twitter investors and bankers have also been keen for Musk to select new management as soon as possible, according to people familiar with the matter.
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