Who’s Jack Dorsey? The billionaire tech founder and Bluesky boss who ran Twitter earlier than Elon Musk

As Elon Musk drags Twitter and its customers by way of an increasing number of turbulence, its founder Jack Dorsey has made a supportive remark from the sidelines.

He posted that “Running Twitter is hard” and “it’s easy to critique the decisions from afar”.

The 46-year-old billionaire left the platform he co-founded in 2006 to launch what he calls a “decentralised” different, which appears rather a lot like Twitter.

But whereas Dorsey rolls out Bluesky Social and continues to sing the praises of Bitcoin, Twitter customers are left on the whim of his former favorite Tweeter.

Here Sky News appears at how Twitter’s founder bought to the place he’s.

Self-made taxi dispatch developer

Dorsey was born in St Louis, Missouri in 1976. His father developed spectrometers.

By the time he was 14 he’d developed an uncommon curiosity within the software program that dispatches taxis.

He went to the University of Missouri-Rolla at 19 and transferred to New York University two years later, however dropped out a semester earlier than he was resulting from graduate.

Instead he moved to California, the place he created his personal firm to ship out taxis, couriers and emergency service automobiles by way of the web.

While working as a programmer for the dispatch platform in 2000, he determined he wished to create a messaging service to replace his associates on what he was doing – with out having to take a seat in entrance of a pc.

He approached a podcasting firm known as Odeo, the place he bought a job alongside Christopher ‘Biz’ Stone, Evan Williams and Noah Glass – who would develop into his Twitter co-founders.

Although Dorsey had been impressed by immediate messaging platforms resembling AOL and MSN, he and Stone determined a text-based service would higher swimsuit his status-update concept.

In two weeks they’d constructed a prototype for Twitter.

When Odeo went out of enterprise in 2006, Dorsey returned to the messaging concept and formally launched ‘Twittr’ in March that yr, making himself chief govt.

Overnight billionaire

Dorsey secured the assist of enterprise capitalists and as celebrities signed up the app grew in recognition.

Two years later, Dorsey moved from chief govt to chairman of the board, reportedly having usually left work early to prioritise hobbies resembling yoga and trend design.

When he was youthful he briefly dabbled with modelling.

In 2009 he courted controversy after becoming a member of a US State Department journey to Iraq. Designed to rebuild tech hopes there after the autumn of Saddam Hussein, the journey itself was pretty uneventful.

But later that yr when the Green Revolution occurred, Dorsey agreed to reschedule deliberate upkeep to Twitter’s servers so protesters may nonetheless talk.

It was seen as a breach of coverage given President Barack Obama had promised the US wouldn’t meddle in Iraq’s affairs. Dorsey went to Russia on one other State Department delegation the next yr.

In 2011 he invited Mr Obama to Twitter’s first ever city corridor – the place he needed to remind him to maintain his solutions to 140 characters.

Two years later, though it hadn’t been launched with revenue in thoughts, Twitter turned a listed firm, making Dorsey an in a single day billionaire.

Read extra:
What is Bluesky?
Twitter appoints new chief executive
Musk asks Twitter if he should step down as CEO

When in 2015 the corporate’s substitute chief govt Dick Costolo introduced his resignation, Dorsey returned as interim – however took up the put up on a everlasting foundation in October.

Meanwhile again in 2010 Dorsey had begun splitting his time between Twitter and a brand new enterprise – Square – know-how that remodeled smartphones and tablets into debit card readers for small companies.

But as rivals launched rival merchandise, it started to battle with losses of as much as $100million (£79m).

Dorsey rebranded Square ‘Block’ in 2021, in reference to his curiosity in Blockchain, formally giving himself the job title ‘Block Head’ in 2022.

Back at Twitter in 2016, the 140-character restrict was successfully elevated by not together with hyperlinks or pictures within the rely. The resolution was a bid to draw new customers – because the variety of day by day tweets had fallen globally.

A yr later it elevated once more – doubling to 280 characters.

Tech shifting sooner than coverage

In 2018, Twitter and different social media platforms started having to reply to the US authorities.

The first time Dorsey testified, alongside then-Facebook chief working officer Sheryl Sandberg, he was quizzed on interference within the 2016 presidential election.

Hours of questioning noticed Dorsey put up an image of his heartrate on Twitter. The platform was additionally accused of anti-Conservative bias, share costs fell, and the choice was made to ban all political promoting the next yr.

During his time in workplace, Dorsey met with President Donald Trump, who had expressed concern his followers have been being eliminated.

Dorsey oversaw misinformation warning labels utilized to a few of Mr Trump’s tweets throughout his 2020 election marketing campaign and the everlasting suspension of his account following the Capitol riots of January 2021.

Mr Trump arrange his personal platform – Truth Social, whereas Dorsey caught by the ban, but in addition expressed issues it set a “dangerous precedent”.

He appeared earlier than Congress on two different events as Twitter boss – as soon as in October 2020 and once more the next month.

The first time, in entrance of the US Senate Commerce Committee, he answered questions alongside Facebook and Google executives a couple of legislation that protects tech firms for being prosecuted over content material generated on their platforms.

Dorsey mentioned altering it will “collapse how we communicate on the Internet”.

The following month he gave proof alongside Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on how content material was moderated across the 2020 election.

When COVID emerged in 2020 the Twitter founder promised to donate $1bn (£0.79bn) of his whole wealth to aid programmes.

The following yr when the Delta variant hit India, he donated £15m (£11.8m) to assist programmes there.

The pandemic scuppered plans he’d introduced in 2019 to maneuver to Africa. He mentioned the continent would “define the future (especially the bitcoin one!)”.

Musk takes Twitter

Dorsey and Musk’s relationship predates his ill-fated takeover.

When in 2020 it was reported that one among Twitter’s traders Elliott Management was attempting to interchange Dorsey as chief govt, Musk tweeted his assist, saying he had a “good heart”.

In return, Dorsey mentioned Musk was one among his favorite Twitter customers and that his updates “focused on solving existential problems and sharing his thinking openly”.

The founder added that he loved the “ups and downs” of Musk’s use of his website – one thing he might have later come to remorse – to which Musk replied: “Twitter rocks!”

They shared an enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies, with Dorsey describing Bitcoin – or ‘The B Word’ as he calls it – as “direct activism against an… exclusionary financial system”.

In late-2021 Dorsey introduced he was leaving Twitter in a workers e mail posted to his account, claiming he wished to maneuver the agency away from its “founding and founders”.

Musk, believed to be the wealthiest individual on this planet, started shopping for shares in Twitter at first of 2022.

By April he was the largest shareholder, with a 9.1% stake.

He was invited to hitch the board of administrators – and regardless of initially turning the position down – then made an unsolicited supply to purchase your entire firm for $44bn (£34.5bn).

By July, Musk had mentioned he wished to again out of the deal as Twitter had did not uphold its promise of cracking down on spambot accounts.

The transfer triggered authorized motion towards Musk – who simply weeks earlier than a trial was resulting from begin in Delaware – gave in and determined to go forward, closing the deal in November.

Musk started by firing half Twitter’s workers, together with the chief govt, which then triggered mass resignations.

After a tumultuous few months within the job, through which he expressed remorse for purchasing the platform, he has made a number of chaotic adjustments and given up the job of chief executive.

Beginnings of Bluesky

Dorsey, in the meantime has been engaged on a Twitter successor, Bluesky Social.

He began it in 2019, however comfortable launched it with a beta model in late-2022.

Having seen Twitter develop at dizzying velocity, he’s rolling out membership on an invite-only foundation.

Bluesky is a “decentralised” platform, which Dorsey hopes will cease the type of hostile focus of energy we have seen with Musk.

He retains a 2.4% stake in Twitter.