Farewell then @jack. Jack Dorsey’s departure from Twitter on Monday came as no surprise given that the firm Elliott Management, one of Twitter’s activist investors, almost ousted him last year.
Only the coronavirus may have prolonged the inevitable. Twitter’s stock keeps dropping. It may not reach the revenue and daily user projections for 2023 that it set last February. It also has the smallest ‘Big Tech’ user base, behind Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.
The prevailing theory is that Dorsey’s departure involves Elliott Management, which controls two board seats and over $1 billion in stock shares, and which flexed enough muscle to boot Dorsey out. Elliott executives seemed dubious of Dorsey’s ability to run two companies at once (he’s also CEO of the financial payments company Square). They wanted someone who was focused solely on Twitter. This may be why Twitter updated its succession plan earlier this month. One former employee suggests to Vanity Fair that Elliott Management forced Dorsey out to keep him from politicking his way back into the CEO role later, as he apparently did after his first removal back in 2008.
Dorsey’s involvement in Twitter has seemed too hands-off at times.
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