Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino explained her motivation to helm the Elon Musk-owned social media platform in a thread Monday.
“Elon knew space exploration and electric vehicles needed transformation, so he did it,” Yaccarino’s thread began. “It’s also becoming clear that the global town square needs transformation — to drive civilization forward through the unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us.”
Yaccarino, who formerly served as the top sales executive at NBCUniversal, joined Twitter as its new CEO shortly after Musk announced that he had found someone to fill the position mid-May. Last Monday, June 6, was her first day on the job.
“Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, you should have the freedom to speak your mind. We all should,” Yaccarino continued. “Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication. That’s not an empty promise. That’s OUR reality.”
Musk made it seem like Yaccarino would start six weeks after his confirmation of hiring her, but she started her new role three weeks after the announcement. Before Yaccarino’s official start, Twitter struggled to give Ron DeSantis a platform to announce his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. On her first day, Musk hosted a live audio space with anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is campaigning against President Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination.
“We have the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices and build something together that can change the world,” Yaccarino’s thread continued. “From what I can tell so far, we’re built for this. The success of Twitter 2.0 is all of our responsibility.”
“Our first priniciples are questioning our assumptions and building something new from the ground up,” she added. “It’s rare to have the change to put a new future into the hands of every person, partner, and creator on the planet.”
Read the full Twitter thread below: