Speculation mounts as Jack Dorsey steps down from Bluesky without explanation.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter's co-founder, has stepped down from the board of the decentralized social media platform Bluesky, which he originally conceived and funded. This move comes after Dorsey's past expressions of regret over the sale of Twitter to Elon Musk and his recent activity on the Musk-owned platform now known as X.
Bluesky, launched with the vision of creating a Twitter service without central control, officially opened to the public on February 7, 2024. Since its beta launch in March 2023, the platform has attracted approximately 5.6 million users, as reported by Bluesky's own statistics. Despite its early momentum as an alternative to Twitter post-Musk acquisition, Bluesky has faced competition from other social media initiatives like Meta Platforms Inc.'s Threads.
Dorsey's departure from Bluesky's board was confirmed by the platform in a post dated May 5, where they acknowledged his pivotal role in starting the project and expressed their ongoing search for a new board member. The reasons behind Dorsey's exit remain unexplained, as neither Bluesky nor Dorsey provided further details on the matter. A query on X about Dorsey's board membership was met with a simple "no" from him.
Furthermore, he has significantly reduced the number of people he follows on X to just three notable figures: Elon Musk, Stella Assange, and Edward Snowden. This pared-down follow list has been interpreted by some as a warming of relations between Dorsey and Musk, particularly in light of Dorsey's previous criticism of Musk's management of X and the forced Twitter sale.