Listen to the Podcast:

Following Twitter owner Elon Musk’s declaration that he had chosen a new leader for the social network and will transition into the post of chief technologist, the Wall Street Journal claimed that NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino is in talks to become Twitter’s chief executive officer.

Musk claimed in a tweet on Thursday, without naming the individual, that the company’s next CEO will begin in around six weeks. According to an NBCUniversal spokesperson, Yaccarino was in rehearsal for the company’s upfront pitch to advertisers next week.
Yaccarino serves as the chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal Media.

Yaccarino left Turner Broadcasting in 2011 and began working for NBCUniversal. She supervised live events like the Super Bowl and Olympic Games at NBCUniversal and assisted in the introduction of the ad-supported streaming service Peacock. Yaccarino also oversaw joint ventures with other tech firms, such as Snapchat, YouTube, and, of course, Twitter.

If Musk picked Yaccarino, his tweet about it came at a bad time for the executive. On Monday, NBCUniversal will give its yearly presentation to advertisers at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. During the week-long upfront events, big media companies start selling ads for the fall TV season.

An ongoing screenwriters’ strike that could cause significant delays in TV production and schedules has already threatened this year’s presentations. As NBCUniversal continues to push its slate of films and TV shows on Peacock, the company’s event is anticipated to have a strong emphasis on internet advertising. The termination of Jeff Shell, the chief executive officer of NBCUniversal, a Comcast business, last month as a result of a sexual harassment claim made by an employee, shocked the industry.

Elon Musk announced he would only be in charge of Twitter for a little period of time to finish the organizational reform he believed was necessary for the company to succeed when he purchased it last October for $44 billion (about Rs. 3,62,200 crore). While making significant adjustments, Musk bemoaned having “too much work” and sleeping at Twitter’s San Francisco offices.

When Musk posed the question to his Twitter audience in December, 57.5 percent of them responded in the affirmative. After the changeover, the billionaire will continue as executive chairman.

The CEO of Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Elon Musk, has come under fire for abruptly changing Twitter’s rules and ignoring his other companies. In addition, he changed the name of the company that controls Twitter to X Holdings, an organization that may someday control all of his businesses—an concept he has openly discussed. Aside from social media, Musk has stated that he intends to expand Twitter into a “everything app,” which would include a financial services component.

The aftermath of his ownership, including an advertiser exodus, will be dealt with by the new CEO. Despite a little increase in daily users since the beginning of 2022, Twitter’s revenue has decreased by 50% since October due to a “massive decline” in advertising, according to Musk in March. Less than 1% of users subscribe to the company’s Twitter Blue subscription service plan, which has been failing. Musk has eliminated thousands of workers, reduced the company’s content monitoring, and let the reinstatement of accounts that had been suspended for disobeying the rules.

Yaccarino is already friends with Musk. Last month, he was interviewed by Yaccarino at a big advertising meeting in Miami, and Yaccarino called him “friend” and “buddy” on stage. Twitter and NBCU’s relationship for the Olympics has recently grown.

“I can say that if I had to save the platform from its owner, she would be my first and only choice,” said Lou Paskalis, who helps marketers as the chief strategy officer at Ad Fontes Media. He said this on Twitter. “I still don’t get why she would put herself through @elonmusk, though!”

Dylan Byers of Puck News also said in a tweet that two people who knew about the situation said that Musk planned to make Yaccarino Twitter’s CEO.