Dorsey has also overseen the company when it faced widespread pressure from politicians and activists to take a more proactive role in moderating hate speech, misinformation and other forms of objectionable content from political leaders. Dorsey took a stronger line than his social-media peers during Donald Trump’s presidency, banning the former president from Twitter and telling Congress that he takes some responsibility for online organizing that led to the Jan. 6 riot at Capitol Hill. The company also recently introduced a program to crowd source fact-checking misinformation.
Dorsey has been at the helm of Twitter as it experimented with new innovations in social media including most recently live audio products and subscription services. In June, the company unveiled Twitter Blue, a long-awaited subscription service that will allow users to rescind tweets and organize their posts. It’s also launched Twitter Spaces, a live audio chat service that were meant to compete with up-and coming upstart Clubhouse.
In recent months, Twitter stepped up its pace of acquisitions after years of languid deal-making, as the company made a renewed effort to increase the addition of new features. In May the company purchased the news reader service Scroll.
But the company also faced market pressures from younger rivals including TikTok and Snapchat which has large audiences among the youngest age cohorts with short-form video products.
Twitter said earlier this year it wants to double its annual revenue to $7.5 billion by 2023, and expects to increase its user base by an average of almost 20% in each of the next three years, according to a regulatory filing.
In the third quarter, Twitter said it had 211 million daily users, 5 million more than the previous period and a 13% increase from a year earlier. The social media service attributed the growth to “ongoing product improvements and global conversations around current events.”
Dorsey has a net worth of $12.3 billion, with Square accounting for more than $10 billion of that amount. He’s publicly pledged much of his stake in Square to charitable causes, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
—Bloomberg news