Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has stepped down as CEO of the social media platform. He has been succeeded by Twitter\u2019s current chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dorsey will remain on the board until his term expires in 2022. Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 and has been CTO since 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a\u00a0letter posted\u00a0on his Twitter account, Dorsey said he was \u201creally sad…yet really happy\u201d about leaving the company and that it was his decision. On Sunday, Dorsey had\u00a0sent a cryptic tweet\u00a0reading only \u201cI love Twitter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Twitter shares rose 5% to $49.47 in morning trading after the announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Twitter was caught up in the heated political atmosphere leading up to the 2020 election, particularly when it banned former President Donald Trump following his incitement of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Dorsey\u00a0defended the move, saying Trump\u2019s tweets after the event resulted in a risk to public safety and created an \u201cextraordinary and untenable circumstance\u201d for the company.\u00a0Trump sued the company, along with Facebook and YouTube, in July for alleged censorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Critics argued that Twitter took too long to address hate speech, harassment and other harmful activity on its platform, particularly during the 2020 campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf he\u2019s actually stepping away from Twitter this time, Dorsey leaves behind a mixed legacy,\u201d said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. \u201cA platform that\u2019s useful and potent for quick communication but one that\u2019s been exploited by a range of bad actors, including former President Donald Trump, who did his best on Twitter to undermine democracy — until Dorsey\u2019s people finally had enough and shut him down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dorsey has faced several distractions as CEO, starting with the fact that he\u2019s also founder and CEO of the payments company Square. Some big investors have openly questioned whether he could effectively lead both companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, the company\u00a0came to an agreement\u00a0with two of those activist investors that kept Dorsey in the top job and gave a seat on the company board to Elliott Management Corp., which owned about 4% of Twitter\u2019s stock, and another to Silver Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Twitter has high-profile users like politicians and celebrities and is a favorite of journalists, its user base lags far behind old rivals like Facebook and YouTube and newer ones like TikTok. It has just over 200 million daily active users, a common industry metric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Agrawal, meanwhile, is far less well known than Dorsey. He previously worked at Microsoft, Yahoo and AT&T in research roles. At Twitter, he\u2019s worked on machine learning, revenue and consumer engineering and helping with audience growth. An immigrant from India, he studied at Stanford and the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As CEO, he\u2019ll have to step out from his largely technical background and deal with the social and political issues Twitter and social media are struggling with, including misinformation, abuse and effects on mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n