Elon Musk: Twitter snaps up top NBCUniversal executive

Twitter has snapped up senior NBCUniversal executive Joe Benarroch, as Elon Musk continues to shake up the social media platform’s top team.

Mr Benarroch starts the role on Monday, focussing on business operations.

It comes less than a month after NBCUniversal’s head of advertising Linda Yaccarino was named as Twitter’s new chief executive.

She will take the position currently held by Mr Musk, who will remain closely involved in the company.

Mr Benarroch has already updated his LinkedIn profile, indicating that he will be based at Twitter’s New York office.

He also posted an announcement about his move that said: “I am looking forward to bringing my experience to Twitter, and to working with the entire team to build Twitter 2.0 together.”

On Twitter, Ms Yaccarino said: “Welcome to the flock @benarroch_joe! From one bird to the next.”

In his last job Mr Benarroch was the executive vice president for communications, advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal. Earlier in his career, he worked at social media giant Facebook.

Late last week, reports emerged that Twitter’s second head of trust and safety under owner Elon Musk had resigned.

Ella Irwin took the post when previous head Yoel Roth left in November 2022 – a month after Mr Musk took over the company.

The head of trust and safety is tasked with content moderation, a topic which has come under the spotlight since Mr Musk’s takeover of the firm.

The reason for Ms Irwin’s resignation is unclear. However, it came a day after Mr Musk publicly criticised a content moderation decision made at Twitter.

Since buying Twitter for $44bn (£35.4bn), Mr Musk had been under pressure to find someone else to lead the firm and refocus his attention on his other businesses, which include electric carmaker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX.

Mr Musk named Ms Yaccarino as Twitter’s new chief executive last month.

The world’s richest man said she would start in six weeks and oversee business operations at the platform, which has been struggling to make money.

Mr Musk said he would stay involved in the platform as executive chairman and chief technology officer.