Jack Dorsey, founder and former executive chairman (CEO) of Twitter, is part of a select group of entrepreneurs who encouraged Elon Musk to buy the social network.
The group also includes Peter Thiel and other entrepreneurs who, along with Musk, were part of the founding of the digital payments company PayPal. Behind the scenes, the group is known as “the PayPal Mafia”.
The information comes from the US newspaper The Washington Post, which says it has heard from members of this inner circle. Dorsey, who stepped down as head of Twitter in 2021, has publicly said he supports the Tesla and SpaceX owner in his goal of controlling the social network.
Other members of the “PayPal Mafia” are entrepreneurs David Sacks and Steve Jurvetson. The most famous name is Thiel, who, in addition to helping to launch PayPal, was one of the first investors in Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook.
Thiel was also a supporter of the campaign and government of former US President Donald Trump, who was kicked out of Twitter after encouraging an attack by his followers on the US Congress in 2021, the day his 2020 election defeat was set. ratified.
Trump and Thiel, as well as other “libertarian-leaning” businessmen, according to the WSJ, believe that Twitter’s current content moderation policy censors certain political opinions, and is more tolerant of liberal and left-wing profiles.
The defense of what he calls “absolute freedom of expression” is one of the reasons that led Musk to buy Twitter, according to the billionaire himself. Dorsey, however, does not seem to share the same view, but he supported Musk’s offer because he was uncomfortable with the influence of the financial market on the company’s internal decisions.
“Twitter as a company has always been my one problem and my biggest regret. It has been controlled by Wall Street and the ad market. Taking it back from Wall Street is the right first step,” Dorsey said April 25 in his profile on the social network. Twitter debuted on the US stock exchange in 2013. At the time, the CEO was Dick Costolo.
According to the WSJ, Dorsey and Musk strengthened their friendship in 2020 – but they had been exchanging messages since at least 2016. In recent months, it was their conversations about the functioning of Twitter that encouraged the South African billionaire to want to take the company private.
“Elon’s goal of creating a platform that is ‘most reliable and widely inclusive’ is the right one. This is also the goal of Parag Agrawal [atual CEO da empresa] and that’s why I chose it. Thank you both for getting the company out of an impossible situation. This is the right way,” Dorsey tweeted.
None of those cited in the report confirmed or denied the WSJ’s information.
