NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino has been hired by Eon Musk as the new CEO of social media microblogging site Twitter.
On Friday, Musk, the current CEO of Twitter, tweeted, “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter. @LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology. Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app.”
Yaccarino’s hiring comes as an extended period of turmoil and downsizing which occurred following Musk’s takeover in October seemingly has passed and the company appears to be running stably, in a higher state of efficiency.
Yaccarino will be arriving from NBCUniversal, where she spent 11 years, most recently as chairman of global advertising and partnerships. Earlier Friday she resigned from that position to take on her new role with Twitter.
In a statement, Yaccarino said “It has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team. We’ve transformed our company and the entire industry.”
Many analysts are more excited for what the new CEO of Twitter will mean for the fortunes of another company, Tesla. Tesla closed on April 14, 2022, the day Musk first made his bid for Twitter, at $333. The stock has been halved in value since that point, as Musk has sold off his own shares to produce funding for his Twitter buyout. Since the Twitter deal closed, Wall Street has been hyper-focused on how the “Twitter overhang” has been weighing on Tesla’s share price.
Dan Ives, Wedbush Securities managing director, wrote in a note to clients on Friday, “Musk’s reign as CEO of Twitter has finally come to an end and thus will be a positive for Tesla’s stock starting to finally remove this lingering albatross from the story. We believe this adds roughly $15 per share to the Tesla story as the Musk CEO overhang is now gone for Twitter.”
Following Musk’s initial tweet about the new hire on Thursday, Tesla stock jumped 2% higher just before the market closed. However the stock was down by about 1% by noon on Friday off a wide-ranging recall in China over a defect in braking and acceleration.
The new hire is occurring at a critical moment for the carmaker, as it endures the China recall, combats falling global demand, and a finds itself competing with rash of new upstarts, many established combustion engine automakers. All of that has been pressuring the stock.
Following a report which revealed worse than expected gross margins for the first quarter, Tesla shares have fallen by up to 20% over the last month.
Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 16.
