Twitter’s new chief echoes Elon Musk’s goal in first memo to employees as she takes charge

Musk will now be overseeing Twitter’s product and engineering teams as chief technology officer

Twitter’s new chief Linda Yaccarino has sent her first memo to employees which echoes Elon Musk’s goal for the company to be a “global town square”.

“From space exploration to electric vehicles, Elon knew these industries needed transformation, so he did it,” Ms Yaccarino, who led global ad sales for NBCUniversal in her previous stint, wrote.

“More recently it has become increasingly 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,” she added in the memo.

The longtime advertising executive is expected to oversee Twitter’s ads business that has crumbled since Mr Musk took over the company in October last year.

Meanwhile, the Tesla titan said he would be overseeing Twitter’s product and engineering teams.

Reiterating Mr Musk’s goal of a “Twitter 2.0”, Ms Yaccarino said the company 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,” she said in the memo, which was also shared with some tweaks on her official Twitter account.

“Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, you should have the freedom to speak your mind?.... We all should,” the new Twitter chief wrote.

Ms Yaccarino told Twitter employees that they now had “the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices, and build something together that can change the world”.

Since the Tesla and SpaceX chief’s takeover of Twitter, the platform’s ad revenue in the US plunged by over half.

The New York Times reported last week that the social media company made $88m worth of ad sales between April and May this year – marking a 59 per cent drop from the same period last year.

Within weeks of the “free speech absolutist” taking over Twitter, several key executives at the social media giant were fired, and controversial people like Donald Trump and Andrew Tate were allowed to return to the platform.

Following many of his moves reflecting a change in content moderation policy on the platform, several high profile brands said they would stop advertising via Twitter.

Following Mr Musk’s $44b takeover deal, Twitter’s value plunged, with the Tesla titan saying in March that the company was worth $20bn.

In April, the multibillionaire said Twitter was “roughly breaking even”, adding that “almost all advertisers have come back or said they are going to come back”.

Then last month, the Tesla titan said he would be stepping down as Twitter’s chief to focus on overseeing product, software and sysops as company’s chief technology officer.

Ms Yaccarino, who seems to be selected based on her connections with the advertising world, would be the company’s new chief.

“It’s rare to have the chance to put a new future into the hands of every person, partner, and creator on the planet. That’s exactly why I’m here – with all of you,” she wrote in the memo.