Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey steps down

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has stepped down from his executive role at the social media company.

Dorsey will be replaced by chief technology officer Parag Agrawal, the company announced on Monday.

The surprise move ends Dorsey's much criticized tenure as chief executive officer of both Twitter and Square, his digital payments company which led to Twitter stakeholders Elliott Management and billionaire investor Paul Singer calling on him to step down from one of those roles.

Twitter's shares rose 11% after the news broke.

Shares of the microblogging platform surged 9% in early trading, while those of digital payments firm Square Inc, which is also helmed by Dorsey, were up 3%.

In his last tweet on 28 November, Dorsey said: "I love twitter". The likes on that tweet surged to more than 54,000 on Monday.

In early 2020, Dorsey faced calls from Elliott Management Corp to step down, after the hedge fund argued he was paying too little attention to Twitter while also running payments processing company Square Inc.

Dorsey fended off the pressure by giving Elliott and its ally, buyout firm Silver Lake Partners, seats on Twitter's board.

Dorsey, 45, co-founded the microblogging site in 2006 and posted the world's first tweet: "Just setting up my twttr."

He founded Square in 2009 after being pushed out of the top job at Twitter before returning as chief executive of the social media company in 2015.