Jack Dorsey hits out at Elon Musk's Twitter takeover in public U-turn!
San Francisco, California - Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says "it all went south" when Elon Musk purchased the social media company, saying Musk's timing was poor and that he should have backed out of the deal.
Dorsey was questioned Friday by users on his new upstart app Bluesky on whether he still believed Musk was the ideal owner for Twitter. Business Insider reported that Dorsey issued a flat denial.
"No. Nor do I think he acted right after realizing his timing was bad," Dorsey wrote.
When the $44-billion deal appeared to be falling through, Twitter's board threatened to sue Musk to force the deal. Dorsey said the board's effort to force the sale was also a bad idea.
"It all went south," Dorsey wrote.
"If Elon or anyone wanted to buy the company, all they had to do was name a price that the board felt was better than what the company could do independently," he continued.
"This is true for every public company. Was I optimistic? Yes. Did I have final say? No. I think he (Musk) should have walked away and paid the $1b."
Dorsey changes tack on Musk takeover
Under his initial agreement to purchase Twitter, Musk could have walked away if he paid a $1 billion break-up fee.
Since acquiring Twitter last October, Musk has drawn heavy criticism for a variety of new policies.
In addition to instituting sweeping layoffs, Musk has also started requiring people to pay for blue verification check marks, rolled back protections against hate speech, and until recently, had begun labeling certain media outlets as "government-funded."
Dorsey's latest comments are a marked shift in tone. He previously called Musk the "singular solution I trust" to take Twitter private, and added that the plan to make Twitter "maximally trusted and broadly inclusive" was the "right one."
Bluesky is now positioning itself as a Twitter competitor.
Cover photo: JIM WATSON / AFP