Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has announced his resignation as CEO of the social media company, effective immediately. Twitter's chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal, will take over as CEO, the company announced on Monday.
Twitter's stock fell 2.74 percent on the day.
Dorsey, 45, was the CEO of both Twitter and Square, his digital payments company. Dorsey will remain on the board until his term expires at the 2022 stockholders' meeting, according to the company. Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor will take over as chairman of the board, succeeding former Google executive Patrick Pichette, who will remain on the board as chair of the audit committee.
not sure anyone has heard but,
— jack⚡️ (@jack) November 29, 2021
I resigned from Twitter pic.twitter.com/G5tUkSSxkl
"I've decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders," Dorsey said in a statement, though he didn't go into further detail.
Agrawal, 37, will have to meet Twitter's lofty internal targets. Earlier this year, the company stated that it aims to have 315 million monetizable daily active users by the end of 2023, as well as to at least double its annual revenue in that year.
Agrawal, Twitter's CTO since 2017, has been with the company for more than a decade. He was in charge of artificial intelligence and machine learning strategy, and he led projects to make tweets in users' timelines more relevant to them.
Agrawal was previously tasked with finding a leader for Project Bluesky, a research project launched by Twitter to establish open and decentralized social media platform standards. Bluesky, according to Dorsey, will help social media companies collaborate on how posts are promoted to users and will give users more control over the content they see. Bluesky could also make it easier for social networks to enforce hate speech and other abuse restrictions, essentially assisting them in sharing the load at a lower cost.
Before joining Twitter, Agrawal worked as a research intern at AT&T, Microsoft, and Yahoo.
Dorsey stated in a tweet that Agrawal has been his choice to lead the company "for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs."
Dorsey was on the verge of being fired last year when Twitter shareholder Elliott Management attempted to replace him. Paul Singer, the founder of Elliott Management and a billionaire investor, had questioned whether Dorsey should run both public companies. Before the investment firm reached an agreement with Twitter's management, Singer demanded that Dorsey step down as CEO of one of them.
Elliott issued a statement in response to the news on Monday, noting that its collaboration with Jack and Twitter over the last few years has been fruitful.
"Twitter is now executing on an ambitious multi-year plan to dramatically increase the company's reach and value, and we look forward to the next chapter in Twitter's story," said managing partner Jesse Cohn and senior portfolio manager Marc Steinberg. "After meeting both incoming Chairman Bret Taylor and incoming CEO Parag Agrawal, we are confident that they are the right leaders for Twitter at this critical juncture in the company's history."
Dorsey, who co-founded the social media behemoth in 2006, served as CEO until 2008, when he was ousted. After former CEO Dick Costolo stepped down in 2015, he returned to lead Twitter.
Since Dorsey took over as CEO on October 5, 2015, Twitter shares have increased by 85 percent. Since its initial public offering on November 19, 2015, Square stock has increased 1,566 percent.