Twitter Inc Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Jack Dorsey is stepping down from his role. The company’s Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal is to succeed him, Twitter announced today.
“Deep gratitude for Jack and our entire team, and so much excitement for the future,” Agrawal, an IIT-Bombay alumnus, said in a tweet along with a note.
“The world is watching us right now, even more than they have before. Lots of people are going to have lots of different views and opinions about today’s news. It is because they care about Twitter and our future, and it’s a signal that the work we do here matters,” Agrawal said in his note to Dorsey.
The departure of Dorsey marks the end of his second stint as the CEO of the social networking company. He leaves at a time when Twitter has made headlines for its renewed pace of product launches after years of criticism that the site had fallen behind larger rivals like Facebook and new social media apps such as TikTok in innovation.
A source in the company said that Dorsey was stepping down now as he felt confident about his successor. The source said the founder would focus on his payments processing firm Square Inc and other pursuits like philanthropy.
The company’s board has been preparing for Dorsey’s departure since last year, the source said.
Shares of the microblogging platform surged 9% in early trading, while those of digital payments firm Square Inc, of which Dorsey is also chief executive, were up 3%.
Dorsey had co-founded Twitter in 2006. He became CEO the following year.
In 2008, co-founder Ev Williams and board member Fred Wilson pushed out Dorsey as the social media site gained steam with users and they determined he was unfit to lead the company.
But after years of stagnant growth and a slumping share price, Dorsey returned as CEO in 2015 while continuing to lead Square.
However, in early 2020, Dorsey faced calls from Elliott Management Corp to step down, after the hedge fund argued that he was paying too little attention to Twitter while also running payments processing company Square Inc. Dorsey fended off the pressure by giving Elliott and its ally, buyout firm Silver Lake Partners, seats on Twitter’s board.
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