Jack Dorsey resigns as CEO of Twitter

Jack Dorsey announced today that he’s stepping down as CEO of Twitter, the social network he helped found in 2006. The change is effective immediately.

Dorsey did not say what spurred the sudden move, though in his resignation letter, which he also shared on Twitter, he said, “There has been 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.”

Parag Agrawal, the company’s chief technical officer, has been named the new CEO. “The board ran a rigorous process considering all options and unanimously appointed Parag," Dorsey wrote. "He’s been my choice for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs.”

Agrawal has been at Twitter since October 2011 and was promoted to CTO in 2017. He has worked on the company’s artificial intelligence efforts, and he also led Bluesky, the decentralized social networking project that Twitter launched in 2019. At the time, Dorsey said he intended for Twitter to eventually become a client of an open source Bluesky protocol. Currently, the project remains in the research phase.

In his resignation letter, Dorsey also said that he will be stepping down from Twitter’s board of directors when his term ends in mid-2022. The current chair, Patrick Pichette, will also be stepping down, though he will remain on the board. Bret Taylor, Salesforce’s president and chief operating officer, will join the board as the new chair.

Since Twitter was founded, Dorsey has served as CEO twice. His first term began with the company’s founding and lasted just over two years. Later, he returned to Twitter in 2015, first as interim CEO, then more permanently a few months later. 

Since Dorsey’s return, Twitter has experimented with new features and products, from the doubling of its famous 140-character limit to a new subscription option that allows people to undo tweets.

Dorsey also serves as the CEO of Square, the financial payments company.