Incoming Twitter CEO faces challenges repairing company's finances, reputation
WASHINGTON (TND) — Twitter will have a new chief executive in the coming weeks who will take over a company that has gone through a massive upheaval under billionaire Elon Musk’s ownership with staff cuts, policy changes and backlash over various new policies rolled out under his direction.
Musk said the new CEO will be Linda Yaccarino, who is currently the chair of global advertising at NBCUniversal. He said she will focus primarily on business operations and he will prioritize product design and new technology.
Musk’s confirmation of Yaccarino joining Twitter comes after multiple outlets had reported she would become the next chief executive. She is expected to start in about six weeks, Musk said.
Yaccarino will take over a company that its owner has said lost more than half its value since he made the $44 billion purchase in November and is hoping to lure advertisers, its main source of revenue, back to the platform after many paused or quit spending during a rocky first few months under Musk’s leadership.
Twitter has also had its staff cut by about 3,750 employees, flipped its verification process into a paid service and reworked many of its service features and content moderation policies to suit Musk’s vision. Many previously banned or suspended accounts have been restored as Musk has rewritten Twitter’s content guidelines seeking to expand what he describes as more free speech.
The decision to make verification badges a paid service through Twitter Blue has also come with problems, as the initial rollout led to impersonation accounts. The removal of so-called “legacy” checks also raised issues with new accounts subscribed to Twitter Blue impersonating public agencies that followers had previously relied on for safety alerts and updates.
“A new CEO can do a lot, but it is not going to happen very fast, especially after all the dramatic changes that have already occurred,” said Wayne Hochwarter, Melvin T. Stith senior professor in business administration at Florida State University. “Once a new CEO arrives, the impact is mostly felt on how people feel about the company, not necessarily their day-to-day behaviors, and their work performance. Either they feel things are going in a better direction, will stay about the same, or go in a non-desirable one.”
In a conference hosted by Morgan Stanley earlier this year, Musk said the company is now roughly breaking even after slashing staffing and other cost-saving measures, though its finances are not subject to public disclosure anymore after being taken private in the purchase.
Prior to being sold to Musk, Twitter had struggled to consistently turn a profit.
The Tesla and SpaceX owner has insisted from the beginning of his ownership of the social media site that he did not want to be its CEO but that it would be difficult for him to find someone who wanted the job.
“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk said in a tweet last year.
In December, he created a poll asking Twitter users if he should step down and promised to abide by the results.
“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job,” he wrote in a December tweet after the poll with over 17.5 million votes, with 57.5% telling him to step down.
Some experts have agreed with Musk’s assessment that Twitter would be a uniquely difficult company to run and turn a profit on, and his sometimes seemingly on-the-fly policy overhauls haven’t made the task any easier for his successor.
“Twitter was a mess when he bought it. It needed something, whether or not they got what they needed is arguable,” Hochwarter said. “The social media business is highly scrutinized. This is much different than me taking over my father’s lawn cutting business. There are virtually billions of eyes watching every move."
“He took a chaotic situation and threw a hand grenade into it. I don’t suspect the dust has settled yet and may not for some time.”
It’s also unclear if Yaccarino will be able to move the company forward without Musk’s ownership and previous decisions being an obstacle.
“It’s easy to say that you were going to step down and go in a different direction. It’s much harder to actually do it especially in this situation. He has put his fingerprints all over the place and has considerable identity wrapped up in the new Twitter relative to the prior version,” Hochwarter said.
