Who will replace Elon Musk as Twitter CEO? | Two viral videos spark outrage among Indian netizens |

Market Watch

• Indian benchmark indices ended in the green, with the Sensex up 123 points at 62,027, and Nifty up 17 points at 18,314.
• Sectorally, Nifty Metal (-1.84%) and Media (-1.12%) shed the most, while Auto (0.77%) and Bank (0.73%) gained the most.

Elon Musk to resign as Twitter CEO: Who might replace him?

Elon Musk has revealed that he has found someone to take over from him as Twitter’s CEO and he will step down in around six weeks.

The details: Musk tweeted on Thursday that an unnamed woman would come in to take over as CEO while his role would transition “to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”

• Though he didn’t hint at who it might be, reports indicate that Linda Yaccarino—head of advertising at US media giant NBCUniversal—is Musk’s likely successor.
• Yaccarino’s experience with negotiating tactics and connections in the media and advertising space will be a big boost to Twitter, which has seen its advertising revenue drop amid macroeconomic headwinds.

However, nothing is confirmed yet, and some believe that Musk could elevate an internal hire — Twitter’s Vice President of Trust & Safety Ella Irwin — to be its next CEO.

• AI expert Shivon Zilis, who has a history of working with the billionaire entrepreneur and even has children with him, may also be in the running.

Between the lines: Shares of Musk’s electric car company Tesla rose 2% after the news broke.

• Tesla investors have previously raised concerns that Musk is spreading himself too thin across all his ventures, which include Twitter as well as SpaceX, Neuralink, and the Boring Company; finding a new CEO for Twitter would alleviate that problem.

Flashback: Back in December, the billionaire had polled Twitter users as to whether they wanted him to stay on as CEO.

• Out of 17.5 million users who voted, 57.5% called for Musk to quit as CEO ; he had said he would do so only once he finds a suitable replacement.

Starbucks’ pro-trans ad, China’s “racist” video spark backlash in India

An advertisement by Starbucks promoting acceptance of transgender people and a Chinese video featuring performers in brownface have sparked outrage on social media.

The Starbucks ad: The clip, which was part of the #ItStartsWithYourName campaign, shows a family learning to accept their transgender daughter’s identity at a Starbucks outlet; you can watch it for yourself here .

• However, the ad sparked outrage from many who termed it propaganda and called for a boycott of the Tata-backed coffee shop chain.
• Notably, this comes amid a nation-wide debate over the legalisation of same-sex marriage that is being heard in the Supreme Court.
• It also follows calls to boycott brands like Swiggy and Bharat Matrimony over their videos that allegedly insulted Hindu culture in order to promote a social message.
• Meanwhile in the West, brands like Jack Daniels, Bud Light, and Hershey’s have faced boycott calls for collaborating with transgender activists and models in their ad campaigns.

China’s road safety video: A road safety video shared by China’s Ministry of Public Security showed a popular influencer and two other men in brownface wearing turbans and several women dressed in South or Central Asian costumes, singing an Indian song ‘Tunak Tunak Tun’ — watch it here .

• It was widely praised in China and received over 190,000 views on the microblogging platform Weibo, but was later removed from the ministry’s Weibo official account.
• This could be due to backlash from Indian users , who labelled the video as racist and inappropriate.
• “They are very much mocking India, Bollywood and Indians,” tweeted Aadil Brar, a columnist for an Indian news outlet.
• However, the response was different in China, where one Weibo user described the video as “magical,” while another commented, “laughed to death”; some even defended the video as an example of “Indian soft power”.
• However, one user warned that the video might spark backlash, saying, “[Indians] won’t find it humorous.”

Of note: The ministry reportedly obtained the video from Bilibili, a well-known Chinese video-sharing platform that contains several other similar videos. [Example 1 , Example 2 ]

ICYMI

• US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the IMF have warned that the US may face national security and credibility problems if it fails to raise the debt ceiling.
• Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday declared the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan illegal and ordered his immediate release.
• Former US president Donald Trump appeared on CNN for a 90-minute townhall in which he spoke about the Ukraine war, the US debt ceiling issue, and abortion.
• Actress Jennifer Mistry Bansiwal has quit from the series ‘Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah’, accusing producer Asit Kumarr Modi of sexual harassment.
• Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta Police, after raiding the house of a government contractor , found her in possession of assets worth Rs 7 crore despite her salary of only Rs 30,000 per month.
• Migrants are flooding the US-Mexico border after a COVID-era immigration restriction expired on Thursday, seeking to cross over before even stricter asylum rules are implemented.
• A relatively unknown Mumbai-based company has gone from owning two oil tankers to becoming one of the world’s ten biggest vessel owners within one year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.