JACK Dorsey announced on Monday that he will step down as Twitter’s CEO today.
Parag Agrawal, the current Chief Technology Officer at Twitter, is set to replace the tech giant, who faced a string of controversies during his career.
“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founder,” Dorsey said in a statement.
“My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart, and soul. It’s his time to lead.”
The entrepreneur also shared the email that he sent internal employees on Twitter, signing off “hi mom!”
“I want you all to know that this was my decision and I own it. It was a tough one for me, of course. I love this service and company… and all of you so much. I’m really sad… yet really happy,” he said in the statement. “There aren’t many companies to get to this level. And there aren’t many founders that choose their company over their ego. I know we’ll prove this was the right move.”
Following the news, Twitter stocks were seen to soar up to nine percent higher, while Square – a company that Dorsey is also CEO of – was up three percent.
Nasdaq then quickly suspended the trading of Twitter shares.
The company’s board has been preparing for Dorsey’s departure since last year, sources said.
The shocking news comes over a decade after Dorsey, 45, co-founded the social media platform.
He co-founded Twitter with Ev Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass in 2006.
Back in 2020, Dorsey had shared his plans to spend six months in Africa, while still working for the company. It is unclear if that is where he will go if he does step down.
“I had been working on my plans where I’d work decentralized, as my team and I do when we travel, but in light of COVID-19 and everything else going on, I need to re-evaluate. Either way we’ll continue to pursue opportunities in Africa,” he said.
DORSEY’S HUGE NET WORTH
As of 2021, Dorsey has an estimated net worth of $13.8billion, according to Forbes.
While being the Twitter co-founder has a large part to do with his extensive net worth, Celebrity Net Worth reports that his stake in the mobile payments company Square is where the majority of his net worth comes from.
Dorsey owns 2 percent of Twitter’s shares, which is worth an estimated $800million, and he owns 43 million shares of Square, which has an estimated worth of $9billion.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, at an early age Dorsey excelled in technology. At just 15 years old he wrote taxi dispatch software that is still used by some taxicab companies today.
Two years later, Dorsey hacked New York City’s largest taxi dispatch company and was offered a job.
With all the money Dorsey has earned over the years, he has also given back. In April 2020, he donated $1billion to Start Small, an LLC he started.
“I’m moving $1billion of my Square equity (around 28% of my wealth) to #startsmall LLC to fund global Covid-19 relief. After we disarm this pandemic, the focus will shift to girl’s health and education and UBI [Universal Basic Income]. It will operate transparently…” Dorsey tweeted on April 7, 2020.
UPCOMING BITCOIN VENTURE
Just two weeks ago, Dorsey revealed his plans for Square to venture into the Bitcoin business.
Dorsey faced calls from Elliott Management Corp to step down, after the hedge fund argued 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.
In March 2021, Dorsey also tried selling the first-ever tweet as an NFT collector’s item.
FIRST TWEET
On March 21 2006, Dorsey posted his first tweet which said: “just setting up my twttr.”
Dorsey and his co-founders bought the Twitter name for around $7000.
Looking back on the social media company’s development earlier this year, he said he would do things differently.
Speaking at TED 2019 in Vancouver, Canada, Dorsey said: “If I had to start the service again, I would not emphasize the ‘follower’ count as much. I would not emphasize the ‘like’ count as much.”
In his most recent tweet from just yesterday, Dorsey said: “I love twitter”. The likes on that tweet surged to more than 54,000 on Monday.
DORSEY’S BRUTAL REGIME
Dorsey survives on a brutal diet and exercise regimen backed up by hours of relaxing meditation every day.
The billionaire also told how he has turned his back on warm showers completely and walks to work for an hour and a quarter after chilling ice baths to stay extra sharp.
California-based Dorsey was vegan for two years but switched to the paleo diet after his mother pointed out he was turning orange from too much beta kerotine.
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