Jack Dorsey leaves board of decentralized social network Bluesky
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has left Bluesky’s board — the decentralized social media platform he conceived and funded in 2019 when he was Twitter’s CEO.
Bluesky confirmed Dorsey’s exit in a May 5 post on the platform, writing that it was “searching for a new board member” and thanked Dorsey for his help in starting and funding the project.
Hours earlier, Dorsey had responded with a curt “no” to someone on X asking if he was still on Bluesky’s board. Neither Bluesky nor Dorsey explained why he decided to leave. Bluesky did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, the early Bluesky backer was busy on X plugging his grants for open interest protocols and calling the now Elon Musk-owned social network “freedom technology.”
Tech sector executive social activity tracking X account Big Tech Alert posted that Dorsey had unfollowed “well over 2000 people,” parsing his follow list down to three people: Musk, Stella Assange — wife of imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — and NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Related: Decentralized social networks have a retention problem, say execs
Dorsey keeping Musk on his follow list and the endorsement of X suggests the two may have made amends.
In April 2023, Dorsey took to Bluesky to lambast Musk, saying he was running X poorly and the board shouldn’t have forced the sale to him, according to TechCrunch.
Dorsey announced Bluesky in late 2019 when he was Twitter’s CEO, posting that the firm was “funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.”
Bluesky didn’t launch in beta until March 2023 and only opened to everyone on Feb. 7, 2024. It has around 5.6 million users, according to its own stats.
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