Twitter CTO Parag Agrawal will change Jack Dorsey as CEO

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is stepping down as chief of the social media firm, efficient instantly. Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief know-how officer, will take over the helm, the corporate mentioned Monday.

Shares of Twitter have been down about half a % earlier than midday on Monday.

Dorsey, 45, was serving as each the CEO of Twitter and Sq., his digital funds firm. Dorsey will stay a member of the board till his time period expires on the 2022 assembly of stockholders, the corporate mentioned. Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor will develop into the chairman of the board, succeeding Patrick Pichette, a former Google govt, who will stay on the board as chair of the audit committee.

“I’ve determined to go away Twitter as a result of I consider the corporate is able to transfer on from its founders,” Dorsey mentioned in an announcement, although he did not present any further element on why he determined to resign.

Agrawal should meet Twitter’s aggressive inner targets. The corporate mentioned earlier this 12 months it goals to have 315 million monetizable every day lively customers by the tip of 2023 and to at the very least double its annual income in that 12 months.

Agrawal, who’s served as CTO since 2017, has been with Twitter for greater than a decade. He had been answerable for technique involving synthetic intelligence and machine studying and he led initiatives to make tweets in customers’ timelines extra related to them.

Agrawal was additionally beforehand tasked with discovering a frontrunner for Undertaking Bluesky, a analysis undertaking Twitter launched to determine open and decentralized requirements for social media platforms. Dorsey had beforehand mentioned Bluesky will assist social media corporations collaborate on how posts are promoted to customers and can give customers extra management over the content material they see. Bluesky may additionally make it simpler for the social networks to implement restrictions in opposition to hate speech and different abuse, basically serving to them share the load at a decrease value.

Agrawal held analysis internships at AT&T, Microsoft and Yahoo earlier than becoming a member of Twitter.

Dorsey mentioned in an e mail he revealed on Twitter that Agrawal has been his selection to steer the corporate “for a while given how deeply he understands the corporate and its wants.”

Dorsey was practically ousted final 12 months when Twitter stakeholder Elliott Administration had sought to exchange him. Elliott Administration founder and billionaire investor Paul Singer had questioned whether or not Dorsey ought to run each of the general public corporations. Singer known as for Dorsey to step down as CEO of certainly one of them earlier than the funding agency reached a cope with Twitter’s administration.

Dorsey, who co-founded the social media large in 2006, served as CEO till 2008 earlier than being pushed out of the function. He returned to steer Twitter in 2015 after former CEO Dick Costolo stepped down.

Twitter shares have jumped 85% since Dorsey took over as CEO on Oct 5. 2015. Sq. inventory has surged 1,566% since its preliminary public providing on Nov. 19, 2015.

 — CNBC’s Annie Palmer and Sal Rodriguez contributed to this report.