Bluesky confirmed Jack Dorsey’s departure from the decentralized social media company’s board of directors on Sunday. Earlier this weekend, Twitter’s founder and former CEO tweeted a simple “no” in response to a user’s questions to announce his exit from Bluesky, a platform he helped create.
“We sincerely thank Jack for his help funding and initiating the Bluesky project,” said Bluesky in a social media post. “With Jack’s departure, we are searching for a new board member for the Bluesky public benefit company who shares our commitment to building a social network that puts people in control of their experience.”
Bluesky and Dorsey have yet to reveal why Twitter’s founder has left the board. Dorsey first announced the Bluesky project on Twitter in 2019, calling it “an open and decentralized standard for social media.” Originally launching as an invite-only social media platform, Bluesky became open to anyone this year, and now appears to have roughly four million users signed up. Dorsey’s departure does not seem to be a good sign for the up-and-coming platform.
Dorsey had an active weekend on his old platform, X. The Twitter founder unfollowed more than 2,000 accounts, and now is only following Elon Musk, Edward Snowden, and Stella Assange. Meanwhile, he chimed in on Kendrick and Drake’s rap beef quite a bit. He also seemed to call X a “freedom technology” in a tweet on Saturday, warning users to not depend on corporations to grant them rights.
don’t depend on corporations to grant you rights.
defend them yourself using freedom technology.(you’re on one)
— jack (@jack) May 4, 2024
NBC News reported last week that federal prosecutors are examining the financial transactions of another Jack Dorsey company, Block. New York prosecutors are examining documents that reportedly show “yearslong compliance lapses” at Block, related to economically sanctioned countries and processing crypto transactions from terrorist groups. Block told NBC it has an “extensive compliance program.”
Bluesky and Block did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Dorsey stepped down from Twitter’s board in 2022, marking his departure from the ultra-popular social media company he founded. As Business Insider points out, Dorsey called some of Musk’s early decisions with Twitter “fairly reckless” and “impatient” in a 2023 interview. However, the founder of Twitter also said at the time that he has “confidence in his new CEO.”
In late 2023, Dorsey deleted his Bluesky account while posting on another decentralized social media, Nostr, that he was “removing a bunch of noise.” It’s unclear what’s next for Dorsey, though it seems the Twitter founder is moving further and further away from Bluesky.
