Musk Sets Stage for More Chaos at Twitter.

"When NBCUniversal's then-head of advertising Linda Yaccarino recently asked Elon Musk about his tenure at Twitter, he gave his frank assessment in front of a crowd.

"It's entertaining," Mr. Musk said at a marketers' conference last month, one of many stops on a publicity tour that was supposed to calm Twitter advertisers. Then, he added: "Train wrecks are arguably entertaining."

Forget HBO's "Succession." For the past year, one of the hottest dramas in the media world has been playing out at Twitter -- and on Twitter -- with the billionaire entrepreneur as the main character.

It is all unfolding before uneasy advertisers, many of whom bailed from the platform after Mr. Musk took control more than six months ago.

This week previewed a coming season that looks equally as spicy. New characters were teased and story lines emerged, including: the arrivals of Tucker Carlson as the newsman looking for a new stage to perform on and a new leading lady to run Twitter as chief executive.

Mr. Musk plans to take a new role as executive chairman and chief technology officer of the social-media company.

On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Musk scripted a cliffhanger by not actually naming his CEO, instead tweeting only that he hired a woman to take the role in about six weeks. The statement set off wild speculation over who it might be.

By that evening, The Wall Street Journal reported Ms. Yaccarino was in talks for the job. Around lunchtime Friday in New York, Mr. Musk confirmed in a tweet that Ms. Yaccarino was the one.

Her appointment sets the stage for more drama. How she navigates an owner with a history of saying he doesn't want to be CEO but who doesn't fully relinquish control will be a central plotline in coming months. Mr. Musk has frequently described himself as a "nano-manager" at the other companies he runs, such as automaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX.

The Twitter drama began last spring when he revealed he had taken an ownership stake in the then-publicly traded social-media company, followed by battles for control of the firm that culminated in his taking it private in a $44 billion deal.The succession drama began soon after his late October takeover with a pledge to hire for the CEO role.

His ambitions for Twitter are to build new technical capabilities, such as secure messaging and banking features that will help the company become a much bigger business. Meanwhile, he is stuck with a firm mostly dependent on ad sales.

Between tweets and news headlines, it all can look like chaos -- cost cuts, employee exoduses and tweet storms. 

Even President Biden mocked Mr. Musk after the billionaire tweeted that National Public Radio should be defunded.

"The best way to make NPR go away is for Elon Musk to buy it," the president said two weekends ago at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

All that chaos may be some of the point, according to George Hotz, an engineer who worked at the social-media company during the new owner's early days."The source of Elon's power. It comes from a new theory of management," Mr. Hotz wrote in a personal blog after he left Twitter in December. "By continually creating chaos, process is incapable of forming, and everyone is forced to work only toward goal."" [1]

1. Business News: Musk Sets Stage for More Chaos at Twitter. Higgins, Tim. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 15 May 2023: B.3.