Elon Musk appoints female CEO for Twitter and says he’ll take on new role

Last year, Twitter users overwhelmingly voted for hm to step down from the position in a poll

The Tesla billionaire bought the social media platform last year for a cool $44 billion (£35.2 billion) and set about orchestrating a huge shake-up in the way the company is run.

Musk has laid off hundreds of employees, including product managers, data scientists and engineers who worked on machine learning and site reliability.

He has also brought in new paid-for services that include blue tick verification and two-factor authentication, much to the chagrin of users.

In December, the ‘Chief Twit’ asked users to determine the future leadership structure of the company, writing: “Should I step down as head of Twitter? “I will abide by the results of this poll.”

As the deadline passed, 57.5 per cent voted for the Telsa and SpaceX billionaire to bounce.

He followed up shortly after with a tweet that read: "No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive."

But he looks to have finally read the room, tweeting that he has announced a new CEO for Twitter and that 'she' will start in six weeks.

Musk will become the executive chair and chief technology officer overseeing product, software and SysOps moving forward.

Tesla shares rose after the announcement.

Speaking to the BBC, Dan Ives from the investment firm Wedbush Securities said: "We ultimately view this as a major step forward with Musk finally reading the room that has been around this Twitter nightmare.

"Trying to balance Twitter, Tesla, and SpaceX as CEOs (is) an impossible task that needed to change," Mr Ives added.

According to two US media reports, NBCUniversal's head of advertising Linda Yaccarino was in talks to become the chief executive of Twitter. The Wall Street Journal and Variety cited people familiar with the matter.

Twitter did not comment on the reports. NBCUniversal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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