Jack Dorsey is shutting the door on the possibility that he will return as CEO of Twitter once Tesla boss Elon Musk completes his $44 billion takeover.
“Nah, I’ll never be CEO again,” Dorsey tweeted on Wednesday in response to a comment from YouTuber Charles Wieand, who predicted that Musk would “just ask @jack to be CEO of Twitter.”
Other Twitter users lobbied Dorsey, a co-founder of the social-networking giant whose has expressed his support for Musk’s acquisition of the company, to reconsider, but the eccentric executive replied: “Nah, it’s time to roll the dice again.”
When a Twitter user asked Dorsey who should serve as CEO of Twitter, he replied: “No one ultimately.”
Dorsey has stated in the past that he views Twitter as a public good and that it should not be run as a corporation.
“In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company,” he tweeted last month.
Dorsey on Wednesday backed Musk’s suggestion that chronological tweets be given priority over promoting posts according to the preference of an algorithm.
“Chronological tweets seem much better than what ‘the algorithm’ suggests,” Musk tweeted.
In a follow-up post, he wrote: “Tap on the stars in upper right of screen to revert to chronological.”
Dorsey responded to Musk, writing: “This is the way though the algorithm is good at surfacing stuff you’d otherwise miss by not scrolling.”
He added that “reverse chron [is] best for live and breaking events.” Dorsey added that users “having choice is the most important.”
Dorsey tweeted: “Ideally being able to choose what algo you want to use…”
Musk and Dorsey are on friendly terms. Their relationship ignited speculation that Musk would ask Dorsey to reassume the CEO post after the deal is expected to close in October.
Dorsey on Tuesday tweeted that he agreed with Musk’s assessment that it was a mistake for Twitter to ban Donald Trump.
Dorsey was CEO when Twitter kicked Trump off the platform following the events of Jan. 6, 2021 — when the then-president was accused of inciting a mob that ransacked the US Capitol in an effort to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
Dorsey, who still owns shares of the company, also said he agreed with another user who tweeted that it’s “short-sighted’ for “a handful of social media companies” to act as “gatekeepers to political discourse.”
“It was a business decision, it shouldn’t have been,” Dorsey wrote of Trump’s ban, saying he believes that “permanent bans of individuals are directionally wrong.”
He also replied to another comment about Trump’s ban that “businesses should not be making these decisions.”
“I’m saying a corporation should not have to make this decision in the first place. [N]ot for something as important as public conversation,” Dorsey wrote.
His argument received widespread support, with many saying he should have realized the error while still at the head of the company.
Once Musk officially acquires Twitter, Dorsey walks away with a payout of nearly $1 billion thanks to the block of shares that he owns.
#Jack #Dorsey #interested #Twitter #CEO