Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey is one of the founders of Twitter. According to the company’s own filings, he served as its President and Chief Executive Officer from May 2007 to October 2008, as chairman of the board from October 2008 to September 2015, as interim chief executive from July 2015, and as chief executive from September 2015 until he stepped down on November 29, 2021. He has also been co-founder and chief executive of Square, later Block, since February 2009.

Two Terms as Chief Executive

Dorsey’s first term as chief executive ended in October 2008, after which he remained chairman. He returned in July 2015 as interim chief executive and was made permanent in September 2015, holding the role for the six years in which Twitter became a standard venue for political announcement, journalism and dispute — and in which the company’s enforcement decisions about political accounts became public controversies in their own right.

Departure and Sale

Twitter announced Dorsey’s departure on November 29, 2021, naming chief technology officer Parag Agrawal as his successor. Dorsey remained on the board until his term expired at the 2022 annual meeting. Less than a year later, on October 27, 2022, Twitter’s merger with an entity controlled by Elon Musk closed, converting each share into the right to receive $54.20 in cash and taking the company private.

Relevance to Digital Politics

Twitter under Dorsey developed much of the early public-facing apparatus of platform content moderation on political speech: labelling of disputed claims, the “public interest” exception for officials, and the account-level enforcement decisions — including the permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump in January 2021, taken while Dorsey was chief executive — that became reference points in later legislative and legal argument over platform responsibility. Those policies and their application are covered on the Twitter/X page.