Musk selects woman CEO to head Twitter

Elon Musk said on Thursday he has found a new chief executive for Twitter, although he did not name the person, the Wall Street Journal reported that Comcast NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino was in talks for the job.

Musk said in a tweet: “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!”

Musk said he will transition to the role of chief technology officer of the social media platform within the next few weeks.

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.” He said that he would then run Twitter’s software and servers teams.

Reuters reported after Musk’s tweet that Yaccarino could be his choice to lead Twitter, according to a Silicon Valley executive and a former Hollywood executive who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Yaccarino, who is chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal Media joined the company in 2011 and is credited with the huge success of taking the network’s ad sales operation into the digital future. Before that she had worked with Turner Entertainment for 15 years.

Musk had complained of having “too much work” and sleeping at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters to put his drastic changes in place at the micro blogging site. In December, the billionaire asked his Twitter followers if he should step down as CEO, and 57.5% said yes.

Musk will remain executive chairman after the transition.