Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey resigns, net worth, Parag Agrawal replaces him

Twitter has announced that its co-founder Jack Dorsey has stepped down as chief executive and already announced his replacement.

Twitter has announced that its co-founder Jack Dorsey has stepped down as chief executive.

The company announced that chief technical officer Parag Agrawal will replace him.

Mr Dorsey is credited with coming up with the idea for Twitter when eventual co-founder Evan Williams gave workers at blogging start-up Odeo two weeks to work on fun new projects as a way to break up the daily routine.

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and co-founder & CEO of Square.

Mr Dorsey said that the decision was his alone and that now was the right time for him to step away.

“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders. My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart, and soul. It’s his time to lead,” Mr Dorsey said.

not sure anyone has heard but,

I resigned from Twitter pic.twitter.com/G5tUkSSxkl

— jack⚡️ (@jack) November 29, 2021

Critics of Dorsey have long been sceptical about his dual roles as CEO of both Twitter and payment-processing company, Square, saying he could not effectively manage both billion dollar companies.

Shares in Twitter soared 11 per cent as news that Dorsey was stepping down from Twitter broke.

The Nasdaq suspended trading of Twitter just before the news broke.

This is the newly appointed CEO of twitter Parag Agrawal and he takes over from Jack Dorsey with immediate effect. pic.twitter.com/2hL02juR6e

— Naija (@Naija_PR) November 29, 2021

The Nasdaq cited “news pending” as the reason for the halt in trading.

A few minutes earlier, CNBC reported that Dorsey was expected to step down as Twitter CEO, citing unnamed sources.

Parag Agrawal also put out a statement.

Deep gratitude for @jack and our entire team, and so much excitement for the future. Here’s the note I sent to the company. Thank you all for your trust and support 💙 https://t.co/eNatG1dqH6pic.twitter.com/liJmTbpYs1

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) November 29, 2021

“We recently updated out strategy to hit ambitious goals, and I believe that strategy will be bold and right,” he said. “But our critical challenge is how we work to execute against it and deliver results - that’s how we’ll make Twitter the best it can be for our customers, shareholders and for each of you.”

The current chairman of Twitter’s board, Patrick Pichette, will also step down.

Twitter chairman Patrick Pichette takis also stepping down.

He will be replaced by Bret Taylor, who has been on the board since 2016 and is the president and chief operating officer at Salesforce.

“On behalf of the board, I want to thank Jack for his visionary leadership and unrelenting dedication to Twitter since its founding,” Mr Taylor said in a statement.

“Jack returned to Twitter and turned the company around at the most critical time. The progress since then has been nothing short of incredible. Jack has given the world something invaluable and we will continue to carry it forward.”

Jack Dorsey net worth

As of 2021, Mr Dorsey has an estimated net worth of US$13.8billion, according to Forbes.

While being the Twitter co-founder has a large part to do with his extensive net worth, Celebrity Net Worth reports that his stake in the mobile payments company Square is where the majority of his net worth comes from.

Mr Dorsey owns 2 percent of Twitter’s shares, which is worth an estimated US$800 million, and he owns 43 million shares of Square, which has an estimated worth of US$9 billion.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, at an early age Mr Dorsey excelled in technology. At just 15 years old he wrote taxi dispatch software that is still used by some taxicab companies today.

Two years later, Mr Dorsey hacked New York City’s largest taxi dispatch company and was offered a job.

With all the money Mr Dorsey has earned over the years, he has also given back. In April 2020, he donated US$1 billion to Start Small, an LLC he started.

“I’m moving $1billion of my Square equity (around 28% of my wealth) to #startsmall LLC to fund global Covid-19 relief. After we disarm this pandemic, the focus will shift to girl’s health and education and UBI [Universal Basic Income]. It will operate transparently…” Mr Dorsey tweeted on April 7, 2020.