Elon Musk Picks a New Twitter CEO

Facts

• After announcing on Thursday that he had found a new CEO to lead Twitter — which he bought last year for $44B — Elon Musk on Friday confirmed that Linda Yaccarino, the head of global advertising and partnerships at NBC Universal, would take over.¹
• Musk said she would start in six weeks, at which point he would assume the roles of executive chairman and chief technology officer.²
• In December, Musk said he would resign as CEO upon finding "someone foolish enough to take the job." This came after 57.5% of users in a Twitter poll voted for him to leave the position.³
• Last month, Musk said he had fulfilled the promise to step down by appointing his dog Floki to the role. "I said I would appoint a new CEO, and I did, and it's my dog," Musk quipped.⁴
• Musk's recent announcement about a new Twitter CEO came about 15 minutes before the close of Wall Street on Thursday. Tesla shares closed 2% higher and shot up an additional 1.6% in after-hours trade.⁵

Sources: ¹BBC News (a), ²BBC News (b), ³Sky News, ⁴Washington Post, and ⁵Reuters.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Washington Post. The appointment of a new CEO could launch a new chapter for the troubled company, which has recently struggled with sweeping changes to Twitter's policies and frequent outages. As Musk's commitment to open-source transparency and accepting a wide range of viewpoints remains unchanged, the new chief executive will likely improve relationships with advertisers and smooth their fears over content moderation.
• Narrative B, as provided by Verge. Musk has a track record of making splashy announcements and failing to follow through. As Musk has reshaped Twitter's policies to match his whims, speculation on how long his tenure would last and how big of an effect it has on his other companies has only increased. While Twitter may get a new CEO, the biggest question is: How much will change, and how fast, considering he would still have a hands-on role over the social media platform?

Predictions