Jack Dorsey to stay as Twitter's CEO, for now
What's the story
Jack Dorsey will stay as the CEO of Twitter, at least for the near future. A couple of weeks after trying to snatch away his leadership to revamp Twitter's business, activist investor firm Elliot Management has come to an agreement with the microblogging company to leave its co-founder at the helm. Here's all you need to know about the deal.
Issue
Why Elliot Management wanted to remove Dorsey
Elliot Management took a sizeable 4% stake in Twitter's business last month. The move gave the firm enough power to call for changes, including the replacement of CEO Dorsey, to overhaul the company and its performance. Their reason largely revolved around Twitter being a mess and Dorsey running a second company, named Square, at the same time.
Agreement
However, the threat to his leadership has been handled
The noise made by Elliot Management posed a major threat to Dorsey's leadership, but the latest agreement alleviates all those concerns. As part of the deal, Twitter will buy back $2 billion worth of stock and add two new members to its board of directors: one from Elliott Management and one from Silver Lake, a firm investing $1 billion to fund the buybacks.
Options
Still, they will continue to look for potential CEOs
In a press release announcing the deal, the new board members said they look forward to working with Dorsey to help Twitter realize its full potential. However, at the same time, the announcement also indicated that the board will look into when it would be appropriate to get a new chief executive on board. This implies Dorsey's staying at least for the near future.
Previous removal
Dorsey was removed back in 2008 too
Dorsey was the CEO of Twitter when it launched in 2006. However, two years later, the position was taken by co-founder Evan Williams, and Dorsey became the chairman of the board. Later in 2015, Dorsey returned as CEO and steered the company through the phase of shrinking users and revenues, despite being accused of being complicit and discriminatory at times.