Crypto Hiring: Elon Musk Hires New Twitter CEO, Silvergate Lays Off 230 Employees

Back in December, Elon Musk put his job as Chief Twit up to a vote on Twitter, and 57.5% of users told him to resign. Since then, many have speculated about who will be the next CEO of the embattled social media platform. 

Now we have the answer. Linda Yaccarino will be the new CEO of Twitter, Musk confirmed Friday on Twitter. 

Yaccarino was the chair of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal and left the company Friday effectively immediately to engage in talks to become the head of Twitter, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday before Musk made the announcement. 

Yaccarino, according to Musk, will be starting in the role in about six weeks and will “focus primarily on business operations.” Musk will step in as CTO and will spend his time on “product design” and “new technology.”

Because Musk hinted that the new hire would be female, it fueled speculation that Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, or former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, could be the new CEO pick. 

Kara Swisher, an American journalist who’s spent decades covering the internet for a bevy of publications, rejected the possibility of Sandberg or Wojcicki being chosen. 

Instead, a day before the announcement, Swisher correctly predicted that Yaccarino would be the new CEO.

Ever since Musk bought and took control of Twitter in late October 2022, there’s been a lot of buzz about whether crypto would factor into the platform. After all, Musk isn’t a newbie in the digital payment space — he founded X.com in 1999, which later became PayPal.

Musk has since adopted a ‘fiat first, crypto later’ philosophy, wanting to master Twitter’s payments system for his ideal “everything app” before adding crypto to the mix. 

Silvergate announces layoffs

The crypto-friendly bank laid off approximately 230 employees, according to a May 11 SEC filing. This leaves about 80 workers who’ll be tasked with liquidating Silvergate, Blockworks reported.

The filing also said there would be three additional layoffs in the coming months. 

“Additional incremental reductions in headcount are expected to occur on each of June 30, 2023, August 30, 2023 and November 30, 2023 or later,” the filing said. 

Silvergate’s woes date back even before the string of bank failures in March. In January, the bank got rid of 200 employees, or about 40% of the staff at that time. The stock dipped as much as 45%.

The bank was also rumored to be tied up in the FTX debacle, with US politicians in December demanding Silvergate to share its financial ties with the bankrupt crypto exchange. 

Other notable hires

• Three former Coinbase lawyers landed new gigs recently. Rick Estacio joined Reddit Monday as its legal director. Estacio was at Coinbase for eight months before getting laid off, 
• eTukTuk, a blockchain-based EV and charging station ecosystem powered by Cardano, added three executives to its advisory board. They will help with the launch of a network of charging stations and EVs within Sri Lanka, according to a press release.

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