Jack Dorsey Resigns from Bluesky Board, Endorses Elon Musk’s X as “Freedom Technology”

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, recently announced his resignation from the board of Bluesky, a social networking startup that he had championed. In an X post, Dorsey responded to a question about his involvement with Bluesky with a simple “no.” This news comes after Dorsey sold Twitter to Elon Musk, whom he had previously criticized for not being the best owner of the social media site.

In his X post, Dorsey also emphasized the importance of “open protocols,” which are open-source software coding that allows anyone to view and suggest changes to the system. This concept is similar to how blockchains operate. Dorsey’s message hinted at the need for freedom technology and not depending on corporations to grant rights.

It seems that Dorsey’s relationship with Musk may be improving. Bloomberg previously reported that Dorsey claimed last year that Musk hadn’t proven himself as the best owner of Twitter. However, in response to a question about Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, Dorsey stated that Musk hadn’t acted right after realizing his timing was bad. Dorsey also expressed his dissatisfaction with the board forcing the sale.

Bluesky, founded by Dorsey in 2019 with funding from Twitter, aims to create a future-thinking “social internet” that offers users more choices and freedom from platforms. Musk is now one of only three people that Dorsey follows on X, a platform with around 550 million active users. The other two accounts belong to Edward Snowden and Stella Assange, both figures associated with controversial actions.

While still leading Twitter in 2019, Dorsey started working on Bluesky as a side project. The app was first released to iOS users in February 2023 and later launched for Android in April of the same year. Musk has been working towards transforming X into “the everything app” similar to China’s WeChat, combining various features like messaging, social media, mobile payments, and video conferencing.

Bluesky has been described as a pared-down copy of Twitter, but one key difference is its focus on giving users algorithmic choice. Instead of a one-size-fits-all algorithm controlled by the app developers, Bluesky aims to allow users to choose how content is fed onto their screens.

Although Bluesky initially garnered attention during its invite-only beta version, it has since been overshadowed by Meta’s Threads as the most viable alternative to X, according to Bloomberg.