‘Should have gone away’

• Jack Dorsey last year called Elon Musk “the only solution I trust” to make Twitter private.
• On Friday, Dorsey harshly criticized Musk, saying he did not act properly when acquiring the platform.
• “I think he should have gone,” Dorsey wrote of Musk.

Elon Musk is no longer the only one Jack Dorsey trusts to run Twitter.

At least, that’s what the former CEO of the social media company posted online on Friday.

When users of Twitter alternative Bluesky asked Dorsey if he felt Musk had proven to be the “best possible proxy” for the site, the Twitter co-founder emphatically said he wasn’t.

“No, and I don’t think he acted right after realizing his timing was bad,” Dorsey wrote of Musk. “And I don’t think the board should have forced the sale. It all went south.”

Musk’s behavior in the run-up to the acquisition and since the purchase — from antagonizing advertisers to sweeping layoffs — drew criticism from industry leaders and Twitter users alike in the past year, with some boycotting the platform over his approach.

Dorsey added, “If Elon or anyone wanted to buy the company, all they had to do was set a price that the board felt was better than what the company could do independently. And that goes for every public company. Was I optimistic? Yes. Was I Final say? No. I think he should have walked away and paid the billion dollars.”

During the troubled takeover, Musk could have backed out of the deal, paying a $1 billion breakup fee. Instead, he eventually completed the $44 billion purchase of the social media company in October. Dorsey retained his shares in the company.

Musk’s latest criticism is a startling reversal from Dorsey’s homage to Tesla’s leader a year ago.

in a series of Tweets Shared in April of last year, before the platform sale was completed, Dorsey backed Musk’s vision for Twitter, saying Musk’s goal of making the social media platform “highly reliable and massively inclusive” was “the right goal.”

“On principle, I don’t think anyone should own or run Twitter. They want it to be a public good at the protocol level, not a corporation,” Dorsey said. books. “The solution to the problem of being a corporation, however, is Elon’s only solution I trust. I trust his mission to expand the light of consciousness.”

Since acquiring the platform, hate speech has proliferated on Twitter, and while Musk promised he would set up a content moderation board to determine how and if to remove harmful posts — no such board has been announced. He also polled users on whether he should resign, saying he would abide by the findings, but remain active as the site’s current CEO.

Musk said earlier this month that despite the chaos caused by Musk’s takeover, the platform, which had long failed to maintain profits, managed to break even.

Dorsey and Musk did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment. The Twitter press email sent an automated response to Insider’s request for comment.