Musk announces he has picked Twitter's next CEO

Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced on Thursday that he had selected someone to replace him as head of the company and that she would begin the job in short order.

"Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter," Musk announced. "She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops."

Musk did not name his replacement, but the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that NBCUniversal Head of Advertising Linda Yaccarino was in talks to assume the post, citing "people familiar with the situation."

Musk's decision to hand the job over to someone else follows a December Twitter poll Musk organized, asking users of the platform whether they would like to see him remain as CEO.

"Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll," he wrote at the time.

A sizeable majority, 57.5%, of more than 17.5 million respondents voted for his ouster.

Since purchasing the platform last year, Musk's tenure has been controversial as the billionaire has largely rolled back the prior management's content moderation practices that conservatives had criticized as political censorship.

He further oversaw the rollout of a paid subscription service, Twitter Blue, by which users may pay for the blue checkmark badge and other features.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.