Twitter announced this afternoon that Dick Costolo will be stepping down as CEO, to be replaced in the interim by co-founder Jack Dorsey effective July 1.
In light of this news, Twitter’s stock price immediately rose 7% in after-hours trading. At the time of this writing TWTR is currently fluctuating between 5% and 6%.
Costolo will remain on Twitter’s board of directors after stepping down, and has publicly welcomed Dorsey as the interim CEO. More details will be revealed later today after a conference call with investors slated for 2:15pm PST.
Dorsey will remain as Twitter’s CEO until a suitable replacement has been found. Leading the search for a new CEO is Twitter Board’s Lead Independent Director, Peter Currie. In a statement to investors, Costolo there is “no one better than Jack Dorsey to lead Twitter during this transition.”
This news may be an indication of Twitter’s renewed commitment towards growth of revenue and user base, after falling short of both compared to analyst predictions in Q1.
Twitter has not been run by a founder since Evan Williams stepped down in October 2010 — unlike Facebook, Google, and other successful startups. Is that a problem that stunted Twitter’s growth over the past few years? Time will tell as the company goes through its leadership change.
