‘Elon Musk buying Twitter is a step in the right direction’: Jack Dorsey

Twitter co-founder and its former CEO Jack Dorsey has said that Elon Musk buying Twitter for $44 billion is a step in the right direction.

Dorsey, in a series of tweets, explained the reasons why he gave Musk’s purchase of Twitter such an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Approving Musk’s deal, he said that ‘taking it back from Wall Street’ was the correct first step. For the unversed, Musk intends to take the company private, meaning it will not be a publicly listed one. In September 2013, Twitter filed to become a public company. Its initial public offering (IPO) in November raised $1.8 billion, giving it a market value of $31 billion. Dorsey returned as CEO in October 2015.

“Elon’s goal of creating a platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is the right one. This is also @paraga’s goal, and why I chose him. Thank you both for getting the company out of an impossible situation,” he tweeted a few hours after Twitter reached an agreement with Musk.

“I love Twitter…Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness,” Dorsey added.

He went on to add, “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. Solving for the problem of it being a company, however, Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.”

It is expected that the deal would close by the end of 2022 and once the deal closes, Twitter would become a private company.

Meanwhile, Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, mentioned, “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

“I also want to make Twitter better than ever... Twitter has tremendous potential I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” he said.

As far as Dorsey is concerned, in his second stint at the company, he was serving as Twitter CEO until November 2021. However, on November 29 he suddenly announced his resignation, naming India-born Parag Agarwal as his replacement. Agarwal an IIT-an and Chief technology officer (CTO) at Twitter was named the company’s chief executive.

Despite Twitter board and Dorsey parting ways cordially, there were rumours that he resigned under pressure from certain shareholders who were not happy with the business and growth of the micro-blogging site.

Agrawal meanwhile addressed a company-wide town hall meeting, where he said that the future of the social media firm is “uncertain”. However, he mentioned that layoffs aren’t planned “at this time”, even though he did not comment on what would happen once the multi-billion deal is closed and the company is in Musk’s hands.