• by Wayne Friedman , Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 12, 2023

Ending months of industry speculation, Elon Musk Friday confirmed long-time ad sales exec Linda Yaccarino will succeed him as CEO of Twitter.

Musk will transition to exec chair and CTO, focusing on software and systems operations, while Yaccarino will focus on Twitter's business operations, including rebuilding bridges with Madison avenue.

NBCUniversal has already named an interim successor to Yaccarino (see related story), show stepped down as its long-time head of advertising sales.

Speculation has been building that Yaccarino might be a likely candidate to succeed Musk, and peaked when she interviewed him at the Mobile Marketing Association's recent Possible conference (see interview here).U.

Yaccarino bring years of trusted relationships with the ad community at a time when many advertisers have pulled out, or pulled back, from advertising on the social platform, in part due to Musk's controversial decisions to re-platform controversial figures such as @realDonaldTrump's account, and more recently, his deal to platform a new show by former Fox News Channel prime-time personality Tucker Carlson.

At presstime, Musk tweeted that Twitter plans to hold a Spaces session with @LindaYacc "where you can ask us anything."