Jack Dorsey has left Bluesky

Twitter/X co-founder Jack Dorsey is no longer on Bluesky's board of directors. He also just poured millions of dollars into a competing project. It isn't clear exactly why he left or when, but it doesn't look entirely drama-free from the outside.

Dorsey made his departure from Bluesky public on Saturday via a post on his Twitter/X account. Replying to a query about whether he was still on the Twitter/X competitor's board, Dorsey responded with a blunt "no," offering no further elaboration. Bluesky confirmed Dorsey's exit on its own platform later that day.

The official Bluesky account wrote, "We sincerely thank Jack for his help funding and initiating the bluesky project."

Bluesky further announced that it is currently searching for a new board member to replace Dorsey, stating that it's after someone "who shares our commitment to building a social network that puts people in control of their experience."

When reached for comment, Bluesky directed Mashable back to the posts on its official account.

Though neither Dorsey nor Bluesky seems inclined to get into details of his departure, the former's social media movements certainly paint an interesting picture. Dorsey appears to have deleted his personal Bluesky account last September yet continues to use Nostr, another decentralised social media network protocol.

In fact, questions regarding Dorsey's status with Bluesky initially arose in response to an announcement that his philanthropic fund #startsmall donated $5 million to support Nostr's development. This was part of a larger $21 million donation to OpenStats, a charity that funds open-source projects that relate to Bitcoin. 

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Dorsey is also still active on Twitter/X, despite having left the company much less recently than he did Bluesky. Dorsey stepped down from Twitter/X's board of directors two years ago in May 2022, just a few months before the social media platform was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk. This departure completed a planned exit which began when Dorsey relinquished the title of CEO in November 2021.

However, Dorsey did go on an unfollowing spree this weekend, reducing his following list on Twitter/X from over 2000 people to just Musk, Edward Snowden, and Stella Assange.

"don’t depend on corporations to grant you rights," Dorsey posted to Twitter/X hours after revealing his exit from its competitor. "defend them yourself using freedom technology. (you’re on one)"

The Bluesky social media platform was developed by a Twitter/X spinoff company also called Bluesky. Unveiled by Dorsey while he was Twitter/X's CEO in 2019, it began as a project to create a decentralised social media protocol before it became incorporated in 2021.

Judging by Dorsey's latest moves, it seems as though his hopes for such a protocol now lie elsewhere.

UPDATE: May. 7, 2024, 10:23 a.m. AEST This article has been updated with Bluesky's comment.