Elon Musk Steps Down As Twitter CEO, Linda Yaccarino In Talks To Take Over Top Job

Musk will take over the role of executive chair and CTO.

Musk is reported to be succeeded by Linda Yaccarino. ( Image Source :Getty )

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Thursday said that he has hired a new person for the top post. He also informed that he would transition to the role of Chief Technology Officer of the social media platform. However, Musk did not name the person but he announced that she will take charge in six weeks. According to Wall Street Journal, Comcast (CMCSA.O) NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino is in talks for the top position. “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 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!

My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023

Last year in December, Musk said that he would step aside as CEO once he found “someone foolish enough to take the job." Elon Musk on May 10 tweeted that the first version of end-to-end encrypted direct messages (DMs) will be rolled out on Thursday. Staying true to his words, Musk today confirmed that an early version of the much-awaited privacy feature has indeed been rolled out. However, in his now-signature eccentric style, he followed the announcement up with advice to users, “Try it, but don’t trust it yet.”

It appears that the encrypted DM feature is being rolled out in phases. ABP Live was unable to spot any new pop-up messages that suggested the addition of this feature in DM chats. So, it could be possible you will be able to start seeing such a message later on. 

However, it could also be possible that Twitter has already rolled out the DM feature, without showing a label or message for the same. The company is known to roll out updates without on-screen prompts. For instance, the recent purge of legacy (non-paying) blue ticks was done without an on-screen prompt and was followed by repeated tweets from Musk himself. 

Musk did say that the encrypted DM feature is still in an "early version". It could be possible that the company is rolling out the feature in batches to test its effectiveness and usage trends before launching an updated version soon. Last year in October, Elon Musk took over as CEO of Twitter after he completed his $44 billion purchase of the company.