December 2, 2021: -Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is stepping down as chief of the social media company, effective immediately. The company said that Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief technology officer, will take over the helm.

Shares of Twitter closed down 2.74% on the day.

Dorsey, 45, served as both the CEO of Twitter and Square, his digital payments company. Dorsey will remain a board member until his term expires at the 2022 meeting of stockholders, the company said. Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor will become the board chairman, succeeding Patrick Pichette, a former Google executive, who will remain on the board as chair of the audit committee.

“I’ve decided to leave Twitter as I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders,” Dorsey said in a statement. However, he didn’t provide any additional detail on why he decided to resign.

Agrawal, 37, will have to meet Twitter’s aggressive internal goals. The company said that it aims to have 315 million monetizable daily active users by the end of 2023 and to double its annual revenue in that year.

Agrawal was also previously tasked with finding a leader for Project Bluesky, a research project to establish open and decentralized standards for social media platforms. Dorsey had once said Bluesky would help social media companies collaborate on how posts are promoted to users and will give users more control over the content they see.

Agrawal held research internships at AT&T, Microsoft, and Yahoo before joining Twitter.

Dorsey said he published on Twitter that Agrawal has been his choice to lead the company “for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs.”

Dorsey was nearly ousted last year when Twitter stakeholder Elliott Management had sought to replace him. Elliott Management founder and billionaire investor Paul Singer had wondered whether Dorsey should run both public companies. Singer called for Dorsey to step down as CEO of one of them before the investment firm reached a deal with Twitter’s management.

Elliott stated Monday’s news, noting that its collaboration with Jack and Twitter over the past couple of years has been productive.

Dorsey, who co-founded the social media giant in 2006, served as CEO until 2008 before being pushed out of the role. He returned to lead Twitter in 2015 after former CEO Dick Costolo stepped down.

Twitter shares have jumped 85% since Dorsey took over as CEO on October 5. 2015. Square stock has surged 1,566% since its initial public offering on November 19, 2015.