Regulatory filings show that Dorsey, who was Twitter’s chief executive until late last year, disposed of about 18 million shares in the privately held company, making him one of its largest shareholders. The news comes as Musk moved quickly to stamp his mark on the platform, firing top executives including Dorsey’s successor, Parag Agrawal, planning broader layoffs and ordering a revamp of the verification process. A filing on Monday confirmed that Musk, who changed his public profile to read “Chief Twit,” is Twitter’s current CEO. It’s unclear whether he’ll pick someone to fill the role in his place, but he’s backed by a group of loyal lieutenants, including venture capitalist David Sacks and staff attorney Alex Spiro, as he evaluates Twitter’s business. Musk and Dorsey have long admired each other in a bromance that played a major role in shaping the Tesla CEO’s bid to buy the company. In private messages, revealed in court filings, Dorsey encouraged Musk to buy the platform, writing that it should always be an “open source, foundation-funded protocol” rather than a company. “That was the original sin,” he said. Dorsey also said he had previously tried to bring Musk onto Twitter’s board, but the directors declined because they were too “risk averse,” referring to them as “terrible.” Publicly, when the board agreed to the buyout, Dorsey tweeted: “Elon is the only solution I trust. I trust his mission to expand the light of consciousness.” Dorsey stepped down from Twitter’s board in May just weeks after the company announced the sale to Musk for $44 billion. According to the filing, Dorsey and Musk “may be deemed to have formed a team” for purposes of part of the filing, a designation that indicates the pair were working together on the acquisition. Dorsey, however, “disclaimer[ed] the existence of any such group and also disclaims beneficial ownership of any shares of common stock owned by beneficiaries [Musk],” according to the filing. Recommended This year’s collapse in the share prices of Twitter rivals Snap and Meta Platforms likely means that the value of rollover investors’ stakes – including Musk putting his previous 9% stake in Twitter into the new private company – is a long way off. below the consensus price of $54.20 per share. Dorsey is a co-founder of the financial technology company Block where he serves as CEO. His stake in Block, formerly known as Square, is worth several billion dollars. Separately, a securities filing over the weekend showed that Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz had funneled more than 35 million shares, or 3.5 percent of Twitter’s total public shares, into the newly private company. The position has drawn scrutiny from US politicians, including Chris Murphy, a US senator from Connecticut, who has expressed dismay at foreign ownership of the media company and called for an investigation into national security implications.
