Linda Yaccarino (ex NBCUniversal) will replace Elon Musk at the head of the blue bird

2023-05-12 16:03:00

[Article mis à jour le vendredi 12 mai à 18h01]

It is therefore not a “crazy” but a “crazy” who might replace Elon Musk at the head of Twitter. The boss of Tesla had made a survey in December to ask users of the platform whether or not he should give way. Some 17 million of them had spoken, including 57% in favor of his departure.

Can the Musk method bankrupt Twitter?

After some dithering – he had insinuated that this result was the result of an army of automated accounts – he had ended up tweeting that he planned to leave as soon as he had ” found someone crazy enough to succeed him. He seems to have found the rare pearl: “ delighted to announce that I have hired a new General Manager for X/Twitter. She will start in regarding 6 weeks! “, he tweeted Thursday.

Friday, May 12, the mystery has therefore been lifted. This is Linda Yaccarino, director of for the American media group NBCUniversal. Elon Musk does not completely leave the bar: “I will become executive chairman of the board and chief technology officer, to oversee products, software and operations ».

Tesla shares rise 2% following this announcement

The tweet drew enthusiastic comments from his many fans, and also sent Tesla’s stock on Wall Street up more than 2%, as the many-hatted executive’s time at Twitter worried the market. A time used to transform the Californian group: on the day of the takeover, he immediately fired former boss Parag Agrawal, former legal director Vijaya Gadde and former chief financial officer Ned Segal. He then abruptly fired half of the staff, and continued to fire employees by the dozens. The delisted group now has around 2,000 employees instead of 7,500, according to estimates.

A company ” damaged » by the chef

The social network has also changed a lot. Elon Musk let back many controversial personalities, who had been banned for violating content moderation rules. The blue checkmarks that guaranteed the authenticity and credibility of the accounts that had obtained them following verification are now available to everyone, with a paid subscription to Twitter Blue. And several Western news organizations, such as the BBC or the American national radio NPR, have castigated the label of ” government funded media which had once been attached to them.

« Whoever is recruited to run Twitter deserves our sympathy and pity commented independent analyst Rob Enderle. ” It’s not going to be easy to fix a business that’s been so damaged by its boss. ». « A new leader is the only way for the company to move forward “Reacted Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at this research firm. She believes that if Elon Musk takes a step back, society has a chance to ” regain the trust of advertisers ». « It’s hard to imagine anyone more controversial or causing more harm to the ad business than Musk. ».

The value of the platform has melted

The chaotic changes and various provocations by Elon Musk have indeed scared away many advertisers, on whom the platform depends for its income. Twitter is set to earn less than $3 billion in 2023, down from $4.14 billion in 2022, or 28% less, according to Insider Intelligence. At the end of March, the multibillionaire estimated the value of Twitter at 20 billion dollars, once morest 44 billion at the time of the acquisition, according to an internal document consulted by several American media. But “ it looks like we will break even in the second quarter 2023, he tweeted.

It will soon be possible to make calls from Twitter

Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that it will soon be possible to make audio and video calls from the platform. ” Will be added soon audio and video chats from your account to any user of this platform, which will allow you to talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them your phone number “, he tweeted. Twitter would thus offer a tool similar to those already available on the Instagram and Facebook networks in particular. It also plans to deploy the ability to encrypt private messages. He had mentioned in November his intention to build a ” do-it-all app allowing, among other things, encrypted messages, longer tweets and means of payment.

In addition, Twitter will soon be offering its users the option of buying press articles individually, a solution that has been proposed many times but whose economic model remains to be proven. ” This will allow users who do not take a monthly subscription to pay a higher price per article when they want to read an article occasionally. “, enlightened Elon Musk, “ it will be a win-win for the media and readers “. He has not yet given any further details on pricing or operation.

(With AFP)