Twitter is getting a new CEO, according to Elon Musk

Last Friday, Elon Musk named NBCUniversal's global advertising chief Linda Yaccarino as the new Twitter CEO, months after he promised to step back from the role.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Yaccarino's expected hiring on Thursday amid talks for Twitter's top job. As a longtime ad executive, Yaccarino is set to bring a wealth of relationships with top chief marketing officers and other ad executives to Twitter at a time when the platform has seen advertisers fleeing – therefore losing billions of dollars – after Musk's $44 billion takeover. 

"I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!" Musk wrote in a tweet on Friday, adding that Yaccarino will focus on business operations while he will be responsible for "product design & new technology." Previously, Musk tweeted that the longtime ad veteran would begin her position in six weeks, after which he would transition to a role as executive chairman and CTO of Twitter. 

Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last October. Shortly after, he fired the company's top execs, including then-CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal, and laid off thousands of employees. 

To make things worse, many companies halted their ad spending on the platform after seeing increased offensive speech and rhetoric on Twitter. To compensate for the losses, Musk has created a new subscription service, Twitter Blue, which charges for the blue checkmarks that verify a user's identity. 

In her new role, Yaccarino will be responsible for revamping Twitter's advertising strategies to improve ad sales on the social media platform. During her 11 years with NBCU, the company's ad sales team has generated $100 billion in ad sales and forged partnerships with various prominent media companies, such as Twitter, Apple News, Buzzfeed, Snapchat, and YouTube.