When Elon Musk vowed to step aside as chief executive of Twitter in December after being voted out of the top job in a public poll, the billionaire said he would leave just as soon as he found “someone foolish enough to take the job”.

Step forward, Linda Yaccarino.

After a frenzied few months that culminated in the billionaire telling a BBC reporter his dog Floki was Twitter’s new boss, Musk has finally found his successor.

In a cryptic tweet on Thursday night, the Tesla billionaire said he had appointed a new chief executive who “will be starting in [around] six weeks”.

Hours later he confirmed that Linda Yaccarino, head of advertising at the US media giant NBCUniversal, had got the job.