Entrepreneur Elon Musk, who took over as CEO of Twitter when he completed his $44 billion purchase of the company in October, said in December that he would step aside as CEO once he found ‘someone foolish enough to take the job.’ Now, according to the businessman’s recent tweet, it seems like he has finally found someone to replace him.
On May 11, Elon took to Twitter to announce that he has hired a new CEO for Twitter but did not name the person. He also added that he would now oversee the social media platform's software and server teams.
His tweet read, “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”
Elon has been stating for nearly the last six months that he was planning to find a new CEO for Twitter.“I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time,” he said.
As soon as the tweet was posted, many rumours brewed about who will take over Elon at the company. According to a reputed media house, Comcast NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino was in talks for the job.
They also cited that sources from the company said that Linda was in talks for the top post. It is to be noted that Linda, the top advertising sales executive at NBCUniversal, interviewed (did she interview him?) Elon at an advertising conference in Miami last month.
There is a lot of speculation among tech and media insiders on Blind, an anonymous messaging app for tech employees, about the topic. Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s name was suggested in conversations. Sources added that former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and a top executive at Elon's brain-chip startup Neuralink, Shivon Zilis, were also among the names being discussed by Twitter employees on Blind for the new CEO position.
Reports said that some top female executives from Musk's other companies, such as SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell, and Tesla Inc Chair Robyn Denholm, could also be named as the new CEO.