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Twitter has announced that its co-founder Jack Dorsey has stepped down as chief executive and already announced his replacement.
The company announced that chief technical officer Parag Agrawal will replace him.
Dorsey is credited with coming up with the idea for Twitter when eventual co-founder Evan Williams gave workers at blogging start-up Odeo two weeks to work on fun new projects as a way to break up the daily routine.
Dorsey said that the decision was his alone and that now was the right time for him to step away.
“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders. 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,” Mr Dorsey said.
Critics of Dorsey have long been sceptical about his dual roles as CEO of both Twitter and payment-processing company, Square, saying he could not effectively manage both billion dollar companies.
Shares in Twitter soared 11 per cent as news that Dorsey was stepping down from Twitter broke.
The Nasdaq suspended trading of Twitter just before the news broke.
The Nasdaq cited “news pending” as the reason for the halt in trading.
A few minutes earlier, CNBC reported that Dorsey was expected to step down as Twitter CEO, citing unnamed sources.
Parag Agrawal also put out a statement.
“We recently updated out strategy to hit ambitious goals, and I believe that strategy will be bold and right,” he said. “But our critical challenge is how we work to execute against it and deliver results - that’s how we’ll make Twitter the best it can be for our customers, shareholders and for each of you.”
The current chairman of Twitter’s board, Patrick Pichette, will also step down.
He will be replaced by Bret Taylor, who has been on the board since 2016 and is the president and chief operating officer at Salesforce.
“On behalf of the board, I want to thank Jack for his visionary leadership and unrelenting dedication to Twitter since its founding,” Mr Taylor said in a statement.
“Jack returned to Twitter and turned the company around at the most critical time. The progress since then has been nothing short of incredible. Jack has given the world something invaluable and we will continue to carry it forward.”