By Seth Gellman
On Monday, November 29, Jack Dorsey announced that he was stepping down as CEO of Twitter. He was replaced by Parag Agrawal, the Chief Technology Officer. Dorsey is still the chief executive of the payments company Square.
Dorsey co-founded the social media company with Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass in 2006, leading until he was fired in 2008. He was brought back as the interim chief executive in 2015, making his position permanent shortly after.
The resignation comes after years of pressure from investors to earn more revenue and calls from Capitol Hill to increase regulations on the social media giant. Some legislators called on Dorsey to further curb misinformation on the platform, an issue that largely stemmed from the 2016 presidential election. Dorsey rebuffed the demands, saying that free speech is more important. Just a year and a half ago, activist investor Elliott Management called for Dorsey’s resignation due to his perceived inability to manage both Twitter and Square at once.
In February, Dorsey released a plan to double Twitter revenue by the end of 2023. Dorsey will stay on the board until its next election in 2022.
In his email to the company, Dorsey expressed his excitement for Agrawal’s leadership and highly praised him, writing, “My trust in him as our CEO is bone-deep.”
On Friday, Agrawal said that two executives at the company would be leaving soon. By the end of the year, head of engineering Michael Montano and head of design and research Dantley Davis will be departing from the company. Twitter’s head of people, Jennifer Christie, will also be leaving by the end of the year. Kayvon Beykpour will manage all consumer products, as well as leading design and product research for these items.
