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Elon Musk hires big WEF wheel as Twitter CEO

Elon Musk has hired Linda Yaccarino, former Chair of the Task Force on the Future of Work at the World Economic Forum, as Twitter CEO.

Published

12 months ago

May 13, 2023

Terry A. Hurlbut

Elon Musk hires LInda Yaccarino - a big WEF wheel - as Twitter CEO

Elon Musk, fulfilling a promise he made after a poll last year, will step aside as CEO of Twitter. But his new hire instantly raises questions of whether the censorship regime that prevailed before he bought the company, will return.

Elon Musk introduces his new hire

Elon Musk introduced his new hire yesterday (May 12), though the news leaked out a day earlier according to OANN. Her name is Linda Yaccarino, and she comes to Twitter from NBCUniversal, where she served as Chair of Advertising Sales.

I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022

Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!

My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023

I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.

Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app. https://t.co/TiSJtTWuky— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2023

But she also was Chair of the Task Force on the Future of Work – at the World Economic Forum. Her LinkedIn profile lists these facts.

On the same day he announced Ms. Yaccarino’s appointment, he also announced the availability of encrypted direct messages.

Say goodbye to prying eyes and hello to secure conversations. We're giving early access to Encrypted Direct Messages v1 to our verified users.

We're excited to get feedback, improve the experience, and roll it out to even more users. Learn more: https://t.co/xl5Juz1pyy— Twitter (@Twitter) May 11, 2023

This will be part of the Twitter Blue service that offers verification to anyone and everyone – for a nominal fee.

Much skepticism, especially on the right, has attended her appointment. After Musk’s pre-announcement, two users expressed fear that bans and shadow bans for “wrong-post” will return. Elon Musk specifically denied this.

That will not be the case— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2023

Nevertheless, other skeptical users weighed in at once.

I've been kind of worried the replacement would be silver tier at best, bronze more likely. WEF? They would never let a convenient happenstance go to waste @elonmusk— Desert Lagoon (@DesertLagoon) May 12, 2023

Eat ze bugs— GearzTV 🇺🇦 (@Elonisdaddy2) May 13, 2023

Doesn’t look like a rumor. pic.twitter.com/JRQ61gLr8f— NEWSNANCY (@NineNewsNancy) May 12, 2023

For the record, I never have put 100% faith in Musk or played the oversimplified (and quite childish) black and white view that Musk is either a”white hat” savior with all kinds of positive shadow projections on him nor do I go the opposite that he’s just controlled op or a…— Bernhard Guenther (@veilofreality) May 12, 2023

“Noah,” editor of the We Love Trump Report, discovered this video by Yaccarino, advocating the original COVID hygiene scheme. “Mask up or pack up,” she says, in addition to recommending handwashing and the six-foot distance rule.

The New Twitter CEO:
“Mask Up or Pack Up!” 😷👌🔺👁️ pic.twitter.com/hkkzz0e9PF— vegastar (@vegastarr) May 12, 2023

This video has no timestamp, but its tone suggests Yaccarino recorded this two or three years ago. In those days, the COVID scare was in full swing.

A larger fear seems to be her introduction of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” initiatives to NBCUniversal.

@elonmusk needs to tell users if his new CEO plans to remain a chairman at the WEF or will she resign? He also needs to make it clear if she’ll be bring DEI initiatives to Twitter like she did at NBC.— @amuse (@amuse) May 12, 2023

(As an aside: some on Twitter don’t seem to know what the WEF is.)

She is a chair of one of the WEF's committees. This isn't the same as getting invited to speak at a conference.— @amuse (@amuse) May 12, 2023

Why don’t you go to their website and check out their agenda. Be sure to look at all the govts, companies and organizations lined up to do WEF’s bidding. Hope you enjoy digital prison and a bug diet.— FreeSpeechMatters (@FreeSpeechFnly) May 12, 2023

You should listen to WEF in their own words as they describe the future they’re bringing. They aren’t shy about laying it down in detail. Look up “Great Reset” and “4th Industrial Revolution.” If you’re fine with it, then you’re fine with losing every aspect of life you’ve had so…— FreeSpeechMatters (@FreeSpeechFnly) May 12, 2023

About Linda Yaccarino

Advertising has always figured prominently in Linda Yaccarino’s career. In the organizations she worked for, advertising sales were a large part of her activities. In fact she once served on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness – in the Trump administration.

Her advertising background might explain the particular tone of this tweet:

The WEF associated future CEO of Twitter promotes influence peddling for advertisers & content moderation that makes advertisers comfortable. We know what happens when you give corporations and their political puppets power over content. I don’t like this. pic.twitter.com/Hj29KH5vD0— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 12, 2023

Yet here is Elon Musk, today, posting tweets like this:

Explaining Constitutional Amendments pic.twitter.com/oYkMPBe9Zi— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2023

Note also that Musk, while announcing Yaccarino’s appointment, slipped in that he has changed Twitter, Inc.’s name to X Corp. X is Musk’s code name for the “everything app” he always wanted to build since his PayPal days.

Separately, NBCUniversal Jeff Shell resigned from the company after an inter-office romance scandal broke over him. The identity of the woman in the office with whom Shell got involved, is not clear.

The portrait of Linda Yaccarino in the featured image is from her President’s Council on Physical Fitness days.

Terry A. Hurlbut

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Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.