Jack Dorsey Retains Stake in Twitter, Saving Elon Musk $1 Billion

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square, speaks on stage at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a crypto-currency conference held at the Mana Convention Center in Wynwood, in Miami, Fla., on June 4, 2021. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey has retained his 2.4 percent stake in the social media platform after it was acquired by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to the filing, Dorsey retained more than 18 million shares in Twitter, valued at about $1 billion when the company became private.

The decision by Dorsey, which was initially agreed upon back in April according to the filing, means that Musk has saved himself a substantial payout to the former Twitter CEO.

It also means that Dorsey will remain one of Twitter’s largest shareholders, second only to Musk himself and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Al Saud, who rolled over his 34.948 million shares of Twitter, valued at roughly $1.9 billion, in October.

Dorsey, who stepped down from Twitter’s Board of Directors in May this year, has been outspoken in his support for Musk taking over Twitter, writing in April that Musk was the “singular solution” he trusts.

‘Common Digital Town Square’

“Elon’s goal of creating a platform that is ’maximally trusted and broadly inclusive' is the right one,” Dorsey said at the time. “This is also @paraga’s [former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal’s] goal, and why I chose him. Thank you both for getting the company out of an impossible situation. This is the right path. … I believe it with all my heart.”

“I’m so happy Twitter will continue to serve the public conversation. Around the world, and into the stars!” Dorsey added.

Musk, who officially acquired Twitter on Oct. 27, has repeatedly stated that the platform must be a place where individuals can debate a wide range of topics without fearing censorship of minority and politically conservative viewpoints; something that Twitter has been accused of repeatedly in the past.

In a Twitter post addressed to advertisers last week, Musk said of the social media platform that it is “important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.”

Explaining his motivations behind buying Twitter, Musk continued: “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right-wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society. That is why I bought Twitter. I didn’t do it because it would be easy. I didn’t do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love.”

However, the billionaire businessman stressed that the site “obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences.”