Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey resigns as CEO of the company.

He will be replaced by the current technical director, Parag Agrawal, Twitter said.

Mr Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter in 2006, was the CEO of both Twitter and the payments company Square.

“The time has finally come for me to leave,” he wrote in a statement, stating that the company was “ready to move forward”.

Mr. Dorsey said he had “deep” faith in his replacement. “I am deeply grateful for his skill, heart and soul. It is his time to drive,” he said.

Mr Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 and has been the company’s head of technology since 2017.

Twitter’s share price rose slightly as rumors surfaced about its departure.

As a result, trading of the shares on the stock exchange was temporarily halted, but has since resumed.

News of Dorsey’s departure was first reported on CNBC on Monday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Reuters news agency reported separately that the same had been said.

On Sunday, Mr. Dorsey tweeted, apparently unsolicited: “I love Twitter.”

In a separate message to the company’s official statement, Mr. Dorsey tweeted: “I’m not sure anyone heard this, but I resigned from Twitter.”

“There is a lot of talk about the importance of a company being ‘founder-led’. Ultimately, I believe it is severely limiting and a single point of failure,” he wrote in an attached email he sent to staff.

He added that he will leave the board when his term expires.

“Why not stay or become president? I think it’s really important to give Parag the space he needs to lead.”

In a way, Jack Dorsey represents the CEO of Silicon Valley.

He is a multibillionaire and has founded two very successful companies: Twitter and Square.

Yet he dresses in tie-dye shirts and sports his beard like a magician. He is a hippie at heart, with lofty ideals of how technology can change the world forever.

He sincerely believes, for example, that Bitcoin has the ability to create “world peace”. And with Twitter it has certainly changed the world.

In particular, it has revolutionized the way politicians communicate with voters and the way news is communicated to the public.

Perhaps the best-known Twitter user was Donald Trump. The populist president of the United States used the platform as a key way to bypass traditional media.

The decision to remove him from the platform following the Capitol Hill riots was arguably the most controversial moment of Jack Dorsey’s time.

The nature of his departure is also interesting. He is extricating himself from the company, even giving up his seat on the board of directors.

That’s very different to say, Jeff Bezos, who maintains a lot of influence on Amazon despite stepping down from scratch earlier this year.

Mr. Dorsey says this is his decision. But in a multi-billion dollar company, there may be a lot more at stake behind the scenes.

He is in his 40s and still has great ambitions to change the world. With his resume, he could do it again.

The 45-year-old co-founded the company with Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Noah Glass in 2006.

Mr. Dorsey, however, has become the face of the company, having sent the first tweets about the service and thanks to his long tenure as CEO.

He left his position as head of Twitter in 2008 and founded the Square digital payments app, which has also grown into a multi-billion dollar company.

However, he was brought back to the helm of Twitter in 2015 following the resignation of then CEO Dick Costolo.

The role saw him appear in televised inquiries before US politicians to be questioned about its platform and its potential role in spreading disinformation, something Twitter has repeatedly been accused of acting too slowly over the past few years.

Like other social media sites, it has also been accused of political bias on both sides of the US political divide.

Requests for his departure came in 2020 from the management of Elliott, an investment firm that owns a significant amount of Twitter stock. The company reportedly believed that a full-time CEO with only one company to manage would be better for Twitter’s fortunes.

But later the two sides reached an agreement that saw Dorsey remain in his post.

Reacting to news of Dorsey’s resignation, Elliott said the new management team is “the right leaders for Twitter at this pivotal time for the company.”

Here comes the change of leadership along with many other changes to the Twitter wall, including the appointment of existing Twitter board member and veteran of Google and Salesforce, Bret Taylor, as the new president.

“I want to thank Jack for his visionary leadership and relentless dedication to Twitter since its inception,” said Taylor.

“Jack was back on Twitter and turned the company around at its most critical moment. Progress since then has been nothing short of incredible.

“Jack has given the world something priceless and we will continue to carry it forward.”