Jack Dorsey abandons Bluesky, leaves board of directors

With Dorsey’s departure, Bluesky says it’s now searching for a new board member for the public benefit company.

Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, now known as X, has stepped down from the board of the decentralized social network Bluesky, which he co-fo pere unded in 2019.

Bluesky announced on its website that Dorsey’s departure has prompted the company to begin the search for a new board member “who shares our commitment to building a social network that puts people in control of their experience.” At the time of writing, neither Dorsey nor Bluesky has provided public reasoning behind the departure.

Dorsey formally announced Bluesky in 2019 during his tenure as CEO of Twitter, expressing the long-term aim for Twitter to become a client of this standard. In a Twitter thread, Dorsey outlined the company’s decision to support the decentralized social network as a means to address issues such as the spread of misinformation and the use of recommendation algorithms that limit user choice.

Bluesky officially established itself as a public benefit LLC separate from Twitter in 2021. To date, the social network has secured over $20 million in funding from Neo, Joe Beda, Bob Young, and dozens of other backers.

The most recent injection of $8 million in funding coincided with Meta’s introduction of its own competitor to X, named Threads. Bluesky indicated that the funds will support team expansion and cover operational and infrastructure expenses. As of May, Bluesky reportedly has approximately 5.6 million users, while Threads boasts over 130 million users.