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Elon Musk announced Friday that he has name Linda Yaccarino, NBC Universal Media LLC’s head of advertising, as Twitter’s new chief executive.

“@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology,” Musk tweeted Friday. “Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app.” Musk said earlier he will transition to the positions of executive chairperson and chief technology officer, overseeing product, software and sysops.

The announcement came after Musk had announced Thursday that he had hired a new CEO who would start in about six weeks. The Wall Street Journal reported late today that Yaccarino was in talks to become Twitter CEO. And early Friday, NBCU announced that Yaccarino is leaving the company, effective immediately, giving further credence that she would be the new CEO at Twitter.

Friday’s announcement comes some five months after a poll on Twitter asking if Musk should step down as head of Twitter, posted by Musk himself, had a 57.5% yes response in 17.5 million votes.  At the time, it was speculated whether Musk would respect the poll results, which he had previously promised to do.

That it took five months to find a new CEO should not be surprising, as finding a suitable CEO of a multibillion-dollar company does take time. Although Musk never confirmed he would step down following the poll, he later joked about who would run Twitter if he were to leave, saying he would resign as soon as he found “someone foolish enough to take the job.”

A further sign that Musk’s role running Twitter may have been coming to an end came in an interview with the BBC in April, where he said that owning and running Twitter had been painful. “I’ve been under constant attack,” Musk said. “It’s not like I have a stone-cold heart or something. It’s rough. If the media’s firing nonstop stories about why you’re a horrible person, it’s hurtful.”

In the end, whether Musk wanted to step down may have been a moot point, as Twitter is not his only concern. Pressure on the Tesla Inc. CEO to step back from running Twitter started last year, when investors told Musk to stop wasting time on the social network. The call by investors also resulted in Tesla shares falling to their lowest level in two years.

If and when Musk steps down in late June, he will have served as Twitter CEO for about eight months, having taken on the role on Oct. 27. His time served leading Twitter will undoubtedly be remembered as being colorful, to put it mildly.

In his time, he cut most of Twitter’s staff — current estimates are around 80% — and told staff that they should choose to work hard or hit the road. Musk unbanned previously banned accounts, banned links to rival services, revoked legacy verified badges and closed free access to Twitter’s application programming interface, among various decisions and tweets that were often controversial.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Photo: World Economic Forum/Flickr