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Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of X (formerly Twitter), revealed on May 4 that he had left the board of directors at Bluesky, a social networking service he helped to fund and promote.
In a recent post on X, Jack Dorsey announced grants for open protocols from his philanthropic Start Small initiative. Following this, someone asked Dorsey if he was still on the Bluesky board, to which he responded with a simple “no.” He did not provide further explanation despite follow-up inquiries.
no
— jack (@jack) May 4, 2024
Bluesky Breaks Silence But Remains Tight-Lipped on the Why
On May 5, Bluesky published a statement appreciating Dorsey for his contribution to the open-source network and revealing the search for a like-minded board member to replace the tech billionaire.
The statement reads:
“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. More to come!”
Despite this public statement, Bluesky’s FAQ still counts Dorsey as a board member, along with Jeremie Miller and Jay Graber, who also serves as the platform’s CEO.
Bluesky was developed as an open-source project without central control in 2019 while Dorsey was still Twitter’s CEO. The network created a lot of excitement in its early days as a way to escape the turmoil at X following the Elon Musk acquisition.
Twitter is 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. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard. 🧵
— jack (@jack) December 11, 2019
After almost a year as an invite-only, Bluesky became available to all interested users in February 2024 and initially gained mainstream attention. It was an alternative to previous changes at Twitter following Elon Musk’s acquisition, such as a temporary cap on tweets users could read.
However, it has since been overshadowed by Meta Platforms Inc.’s Threads, which is seen as a more viable alternative.
Despite his exit from Bluesky, Dorsey’s weekend was nothing short of intriguing on X.
In addition to the corporate news about his Start Small initiative, the tech entrepreneur unfollowed nearly every other account on X, except for three: Musk, Edward Snowden, and Stella Assange, wife of imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher.
Dorsey also expressed his view on X’s structure, which he described as “freedom technology,” emphasizing that corporations can build upon open protocols.
However, his position on open protocols has elicited criticisms from many X users, who saw his post as hypocritical, given his past actions as Twitter CEO.
The king of censorship has spoken. 🤦♂️ zero self-awareness.
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) May 4, 2024
During his time at Twitter, Dorsey faced criticisms for promoting censorship and restricting accounts that shared opposing political views, especially during the run-up to the US presidential election in 2020.
As one X user pointed out, conservative voices were censored and deplatformed.
You censored and deplatformed millions of conservative users in your platform. I was one of them. For questioning the 2020 election. I fought for my account. It took elon buying it to get my account reinstated.
How does that make you feel knowing you silenced millions of…
— Sassafrass84 (@Sassafrass_84) May 4, 2024
Others expressed dissatisfaction over what they perceived as the silencing of voices during his time as Twitter CEO.
