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- Twitter's (TWTR +3.4%) CEO Jack Dorsey is exiting that role, and Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal will succeed him there, effective immediately, the company says.
- "I've decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders," Dorsey says. "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."
- Dorsey has also been CEO of Square (SQ -1.3%).
- Salesforce's Bret Taylor will become independent chair of the board. He succeeds Patrick Pichette there, who will remain on the board.
- Agrawal has been CTO since 2017; he's been with the company for more than a decade.
- Dorsey will remain on Twitter's board, the company says, until his term expires in 2022. Dorsey now says that he'll leave the board after that. "Why not stay or become chair? I believe it's really important to give Parag the space he needs to lead. And ... I believe it's critical a company can stand on its own, free of its founder's influence or direction."
- Dorsey has set an all-hands discussion for the company for tomorrow morning.
- "Not sure anyone has heard but, I resigned from Twitter," Jack tweets along with his letter to staff.
- "I want you all to know that this was my decision and I own it," Dorsey says, adding "there aren't many founders that choose their company over their own ego."
- Dorsey and the board had settled on his successor, and Reuters says the board has been preparing for his departure for the past year.
- Updated 11 a.m.: After resuming trading, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) is up 3.8%. Square (NYSE:SQ), where Dorsey remains CEO, is -0.1%.
- Twitter says there are no changes to its previously shared guidance or its 2023 goals. It's set to take part in Barclays' Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference Dec. 7, with Agrawal joining CFO Ned Segal for the company's virtual fireside chat.
- "We recently updated our strategy to hit ambitious goals, and I believe that strategy to be bold and right," Agrawal says. Earlier this year, Twitter said it's targeting 315 million monetizable daily active users by the end of 2023 and to at least double its annual revenue.
- News broke earlier that Dorsey was planning to step down. His CEO tenure had survived an activist push from Elliott Management starting in spring 2020.