Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey announced on Monday that he is stepping down from his position, however, he will stay on the board of the company until his term expires in 2022.
The company board has appointed Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Parag Agrawal as his successor with immediate effect.
“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders,” Dorsey said in the statement. “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.”
Parag Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 and was appointed as CTO in 2017. Agrawal has been in charge of strategy involving AI and machine learning and led projects to make tweets in users’ timelines more relevant. Before joining Twitter, he worked at Yahoo, Microsoft, and AT&T Labs.
“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,” tweeted Parag Agrawal.
In another announcement, Salesforce president and COO Bret Taylor will become the chairman of the board.
Following the announcement, the stock price of Twitter surged by 4.82% in intra-day trading at the New York Stock Exchange.