Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, is to resign, according to a shock new report from CNBC.
Twitter’s shares jumped 11 per cent after the unconfirmed reports.
CNBC said that Mr Dorsey was expected to step down “in the near term”, citing “a number of different people familiar with the situation”. David Faber, the CNBC journalist who first reported the news, said that he did “not know much else” and that it was unclear who would lead the company.
Mr Dorsey is chief executive of Twitter but also Square, an online payments company. He has in the past faced calls to concentrate on one of the company’s he leads.
He has also faced criticism from activist shareholders, notably the hedge fund Elliott Management and its billionaire founder Paul Singer. That came to a head in 2020, though it was later announced that the two had reached an agreement that would leave Mr Dorsey in charge.
Mr Dorsey was a co-founder of Twitter and served as its first chief executive. He left that role in 2008, but came back to it in 2015, and has served as the head of the company since then.
Those years have proven controversial for Twitter. In particular, Mr Dorsey has been criticised for the moderation rules on its platform – for example facing outrage from both those who thought Donald Trump should not be allowed to run an account on the platform, and from Mr Trump’s supporters when he was removed.
Mr Dorsey has also shown interest in a number of pursuits outside of his work at Twitter. He is a keen practitioner of meditation – facing criticism after he undertook a 10-day silent retreat in Myanmar – as well as having shown a keen interest in bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Neither Twitter or Mr Dorsey have yet commented on the speculation. It is not clear whether Mr Dorsey’s latest tweet – posted over the weekend – has any connection to the reports.
