Wired editor Thompson named CEO of The Atlantic

Nicholas Thompson, the editor in chief of Wired magazine, has been hired as chief executive officer of The Atlantic.

He will start his new position in February and be based in New York.

“I’ve read and been inspired by The Atlantic my whole life – especially through the brilliant run they’ve had recently,” he wrote on Twitter. “This is an extraordinary opportunity to work to build, and expand, the business of one of the most important publications in America.”

Thompson became editor in chief of Wired in January 2017. He was a senior editor at Wired from 2005 to 2010 before returning to the magazine.

“And thank you to my colleagues at Wired who have done such inspiring work helping crack open the biggest tech stories of our time and building new business models while we’ve done it,” said Thompson on Twitter.

Thompson was previously editor of the website of The New Yorker. During his tenure, readership at NewYorker.com rose almost sevenfold. At Wired, digital subscriptions have risen by roughly 300 percent under his leadership. He helped launch the Get Wired app and podcast as well as the magazine’s fast-growing affiliate-revenue business and its annual Wired25 event.

He is also a contributing editor at CBS and CNN International, which means he appears on air to talk about tech stories and trends.

Thompson is also a co-founder of The Atavist, a digital magazine and publishing platform. Prior to starting at Wired, he was a senior editor at The New Yorker and then the editor of newyorker.com.

He published a book in 2009 called “The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War.”