Jack Dorsey officially announced on Monday he is stepping down as CEO of Twitter. He will be replaced by Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CTO, who...
Jack Dorsey officially announced on Monday he is stepping down as CEO of Twitter.
He will be replaced by Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CTO, who will have incredibly tough targets to meet, after Twitter announced earlier this year it aims to double its annual revenue by 2023 and 315 million monetizable daily active users.
In an email to company employees he posted to Twitter on Monday, Dorsey, 45, denied that he was being pushed out of the company's leadership and claimed to be resigning so that the company can move on from its founders.
'I've worked hard to ensure this company can break away from its founding and founders,' he wrote, noting that 'there aren't many founders that choose their company over ego.
'I know we'll prove this was the right move.'
Dorsey was the CEO of the social media giant when it was first founded in 2006, and oversaw its startup.
His departure comes after a major bust up between Dorsey and Elliott Management last year, a hedge fund run by Paul Singer which has a substantial stake in Twitter, which ended in the hedge fund trying to replace him as CEO.
While Dorsey managed to hold onto his role, the hedge fund was able to force Twitter to make multiple changes to its corporate structure. It was announced at the time that a board committee would be formed to 'evaluate the CEO succession plan,' according to The Verge.
After CNBC broke the news of Dorsey's imminent departure, Twitter's share price soared by 11 percent, while those of Square Inc, which Dorsey also serves as the CEO of, were up 3 percent.
By 10am, NASDAQ had announced it would halt trading on the social media giant, but it soon resumed after Dorsey's announcement, dropping six percent to be up only 5 percent from the day before.
Jack Dorsey, left, stepped down as the chief executive of Twitter on Monday and announced that Parag Agrawal, right, who currently serves as the Twitter CTO, will step in to replace him as CEO of the social media giant
Dorsey announced his resignation with a screengrab of an email he sent to employees
In the email to company employees, Dorsey denied that he was pushed out of the company.
He wrote: 'After almost 16 years of having a role at our company from co-founder to CEO to chair to exec chair to interim CEO to CEO, I decided it's finally time for me to leave.
'There's a lot of talk about the importance of a company being "founder led." Ultimately, I believe that's severely limiting and a single point of failure.
'I've worked hard to ensure this company can break away from its founding and founders,' he noted, citing Agrawal's agreement to become CEO and Bret Taylor agreeing to become the board chair as a reason he decided to step down now.
'The board ran a rigorous process considering all options and unanimously appointed Parag,' Dorsey wrote of Agrawal. 'He's been my choice for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs.
'He's curious, probing, rational, creative, demanding, self-aware and humble,' Dorsey continued. 'He leads with heart and soul and is someone I learn from daily.
'My trust in him as our CEO is bone deep.'
Dorsey also noted to his employees: 'I want you all to know this was my decision and I own it. It was a tough one for me, of course. I love this company and all of you so much. I'm really sad... yet really happy.
'There aren't many companies that get to this level,' Dorsey continued. 'And there aren't many founders that choose their company over ego.
'I know we'll prove this was the right move.'
Dorsey was previously pushed out of his leadership position in the company in 2008 amid claims he kept leaving work early to enjoy other pursuits like yoga and fashion design, and chose improvements to the site over revenue.
In March 2011, Dorsey was named executive chairman, and when new CEO Dick Costolo announced his resignation in June 2015, Dorsey returned.
He will now remain on Twitter’s board of directors through his current term, which runs through 2022, but will step aside as chairman, with current board member Bret Taylor set to assume those responsibilities. Once his term ends, Dorsey told staff, he will leave the company entirely.
On Sunday, Dorsey tweeted: 'I love Twitter.'
On Sunday, Dorsey tweeted that he loves Twitter
After news of his departure broke, shares of Twitter rose 11 percent, but fell 6 percent after he announced his departure, to 5 percent above trading yesterday
The news of his departure comes after years of the social media mogul facing scrutiny for his apparent censorship of conservative voices, with some accusing him of bias.
In January, following the unrest at the Capitol, the company announced it had permanently suspended former President Donald Trump citing 'the risk of further incitement of violence.'
He later defended the decision in a series of tweets, writing: 'I do not celebrate or feel pride' in the ban.
He added, 'I believe this was the right decision for Twitter. We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety.'
'Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all,' he continued.
'Having to take these actions fragment the public conversation. They divide us. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption, and learning. And sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation,' Dorsey wrote.
The company also faced criticism after Twitter stopped users from linking to stories alleging Joe Biden may be corrupt ahead of the 2020 election.
The row exploded after the New York Post reported that Hunter Biden allegedly offered to introduce his Ukrainian business partners to his father, who was vice-president at the time, in exchange for cash.
The report was based on an email recovered from an abandoned laptop that had been turned over to Donald Trump's Republican allies.
But, despite appearing in a respected newspaper, the social-media giants blocked users from spreading the story, with Facebook saying it had to be fact-checked and Twitter saying it violated its rules on using hacked material.
The Twitter accounts of the newspaper, of the official Trump campaign and of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany were even temporarily banned from posting anything at all because of the furor.
In the aftermath, McEnany accused the social media giant of bias and censorship for only banning content that 'hurts the side of the aisle that Silicon Valley prefers'.
Speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News, McEnany accused the media giant of allowing articles that accused Trump of collusion with Russia to be posted on its site, despite the president being cleared during his impeachment trial earlier this year.
She also revealed that the lock on the account would be permanent unless she deletes the tweets, describing herself as being 'held at gunpoint' by the platform.
'This was a news story about emails and even the Biden campaign does not dispute the authenticity of the emails. They had a chance today and they didn't,' she said, knocking Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's claim that the Biden story had been restricted because personal information was published.
'Meanwhile, you have the story about President Trump in The Atlantic where you had more than 20 sources on the record disputing the content of the email.
'You have death to Israel that is permitted on Twitter but not an email which is reported by ... the New York Post, a credible outlet, you are not allowed to share that information.
'Make no mistake, if they can ban the press secretary of the United States for President Trump, they can ban any American citizen and that is pathetic,' McEnany added.
'We have to hold Twitter accountable, and Facebook too, it was banning the transmission of the story simply because ideologically, it hurts the side of the aisle that Silicon Valley prefers. It's sad, it's censorship. This is not America.'
Afterwards, Dorsey was forced to apologize, describing the decision to block links to the story as 'unacceptable'.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany hit out at Twitter on Wednesday night during an interview with Fox after they locked her personal account over a tweet referencing a story about Joe Biden 's dealings with his son Hunter's business associates in the Ukraine
No comments