Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has stepped down from his position, with the company's board unanimously appointing Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Parag Agrawal as his successor.

Mr Dorsey posted a statement on his Twitter account, in which he said, "I want you all to know this was my decision and I own it."

"I'm really sad ... yet really happy," he continued.

He will remain on the board until his term expires in 2022.

Mr Agrawal has been CTO since 2017 and at Twitter since 2011.

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The announcement of Mr Dorsey's departure came hours after it was mooted on CNBC, and led to shares in the company surging more than 10 per cent in early Tuesday trading.

Shares of digital payments firm Square Inc, of which Mr Dorsey is also chief executive, were up 3 per cent.

Square is a financial payments company that he founded, and some big investors have openly questioned whether he could be effective leading both.

In early 2020, Mr Dorsey faced calls from Elliott Management Corp to step down, after the hedge fund argued that he was paying too little attention to Twitter while also running Square Inc.

Mr Dorsey fended off the pressure by giving Elliott and its ally, buyout firm Silver Lake Partners, seats on Twitter's board.

'I love Twitter'

Just two days before news of his resignation broke, Mr Dorsey had tweeted from his personal account: " I love twitter"

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Mr Dorsey first became Twitter CEO in 2007 but left the role in 2008, before he returned to the post in 2015.

In his goodbye post, he said that he has "worked hard to ensure this company can break away from its founding and founders" and that to focus too much on whether companies are led by their founders is "severely limiting."

While Twitter has high-profile users like politicians and celebrities and is a favourite of journalists, its user base lags far behind old rivals like Facebook and YouTube and newer ones like TikTok.

It has just over 200 million daily active users, a common industry metric.

Twitter also announced on Tuesday a new board chairman, Bret Taylor, to replace its existing chair, Patrick Pichette. Mr Pichette will remain on the board. Mr Taylor has been on Twitter's board since 2016 and is the president and COO of business software company Salesforce.

Reuters