Jack Dorsey no longer thinks Elon Musk is the right person to run Twitter

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey backtracked Saturday on his earlier endorsement of Elon Musk as the precise alternative to guide the corporate, talking out towards the billionaire who, for the previous six months, has led Twitter by a sequence of largely self-inflicted crises.

Asked on Bluesky, Dorsey’s new Twitter-like social media enterprise, whether or not he believed Musk has been the absolute best steward of Twitter, Dorsey stated flatly: “No.”

Dorsey added that Musk “should have walked away” from buying Twitter for US$44 billion, and faulted Twitter’s board in hindsight for attempting to compel Musk to observe by with the deal regardless of Musk’s makes an attempt to again out of the acquisition final yr.

“It all went south,” Dorsey stated. “But it happened and all we can do now is build something to avoid that ever happening again.”

Twitter, which has reduce a lot of its public relations group below Musk, did not instantly reply to a request for remark.

Under Musk, Twitter has slashed most of its workers, suffered frequent service disruptions and made numerous controversial modifications to its insurance policies and options, together with a current determination to take away blue checks from VIP customers who do not pay to be verified.

Dorsey’s reflections, outlined in Bluesky posts reviewed by CNN, spotlight the Twitter founder’s rising disillusionment with Musk. They additionally come after quite a few exchanges in current months the place Dorsey has publicly questioned a few of Musk’s decision-making.

A yr in the past, Dorsey was fast to heap reward on Musk. When Musk’s deal to buy Twitter was first introduced, Dorsey stated that as long as Twitter needed to be owned by a single particular person or firm, “Elon is the singular solution I trust.”

“I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness,” Dorsey proclaimed on the time.

Dorsey additionally rolled over his greater than 18 million shares in Twitter (a roughly 2.4 per cent stake) into the brand new Musk-owned firm as an fairness investor, quite than receiving a money payout, based on a securities submitting after the deal was accomplished.

Now, although, Dorsey seems to imagine Musk was an imperfect alternative. Confronted by criticism from different Bluesky customers that Twitter may have gone in a unique course, Dorsey argued that there was nothing stopping another person from outbidding Musk.

“If Elon or anyone wanted to buy the company, all they had to do was name a price that the board felt was better than what the company could do independently,” he stated. “This is true for every public company.”

Asked whether or not he felt any duty for the function he performed within the transaction, Dorsey, who served on Twitter’s board on the time, stated he was not the one one who approved the deal and that Twitter’s “only alternative” to Musk was an acquisition by “hedge funds and Wall Street activists.”

“The company would have never survived as a public company,” Dorsey claimed, including: “I wish it were different,” however that a few of Twitter’s income initiatives previous to Musk’s takeover “would not have mattered given market turn.”