Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino Parrots Elon Musk’s ‘Global Town Square’ Talking Points in First Memo to Staffers
Linda Yaccarino, who has taken over the role of CEO at Elon Musk’s Twitter, sent out her first communication to the social network’s employees Monday.
In her 320-word memo, Yaccarino, who jumped ship from NBCUniversal to join Twitter, didn’t spell out specifically how she plans to run Twitter’s operations or what Musk’s “Twitter 2.0” vision means in terms of potential new features or products. Instead, she borrowed some of the talking points of her boss, who has previously described Twitter as “the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”
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“From space exploration to electric vehicles, Elon knew these industries needed transformation, so he did it,” Yaccarino wrote in the memo. “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.”
Yaccarino also said that Twitter should be a place where you have “the freedom to speak your mind,” echoing the free-speech principles espoused by Musk, a self-proclaimed “absolutist” on issues of free expression. Musk recently defended his comparison of billionaire financier George Soros to Marvel’s Jewish supervillain Magneto, saying in a CNBC interview that “I’ll say what I want to say, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it.”
Musk last month officially announced Yaccarino, formerly NBCU’s top advertising sales exec, will take the helm as Twitter’s new CEO. Yaccarino said she started at Twitter last week. According to Musk, she 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,” Musk wrote in announcing her hire.
Here’s Yaccarino’s note to staffers, which she also posted as a thread on Twitter:
Hello Twitter!
People keep asking me: Why Twitter? So, I’ll tell you.
From space exploration to electric vehicles, Elon knew these industries needed transformation, so he did it. 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.
Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, You’re brilliant — everybody should get the chance to hear this. Or, I’m learning so much from you — can we do this again? Or maybe it’s as simple as, You should have the freedom to speak your mind. We all should.
Enter Twitter 2.0.
Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication. We’re on the precipice of making history — and that’s not an empty promise. That’s OUR reality.
When you start by wrapping your arms around this powerful vision, literally everything is possible. You have to genuinely believe — and work hard for that belief. And in this moment of complete reinvention, we have the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices, and build something together that can change the world. And from what I can tell so far, you’re built for this.
The success of Twitter 2.0 is all of our responsibility.
We need to think big.
We need to transform.
We need to do it all together.
And we can do it all by starting from first principles — questioning our assumptions and building something new from the ground up. 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.
So, let’s dig our heels in (4 inches or flat!) and build Twitter 2.0 together.
Linda
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