Jack Dorsey has stepped down from the board of Bluesky, a social networking service that he helped fund and popularize a year ago. This decision comes after Dorsey expressed regret over the sale of Twitter to Elon Musk. In a post on X, the platform now owned by Musk, Dorsey announced new philanthropic grants for open internet protocols, which he referred to as “freedom technology.” He also mentioned that corporations can build upon open protocols as well.
Dorsey’s tweet on X encouraged people to not rely on corporations for their rights, but to defend them using “freedom technology.” On X, Dorsey now only follows three people: Musk, Edward Snowden, and Stella Assange. This shift in his follows suggests a possible improvement in relations between Dorsey and Musk, following a previous statement by Dorsey that things had gone downhill after Musk’s takeover and transformation of Twitter.
Bluesky was created as a network and protocol in line with Dorsey’s vision for Twitter as a service without centralized control. It was made available to all interested users in February and gained attention for providing an alternative to Twitter after Musk’s acquisition. However, Bluesky has since been overshadowed by the launch of Meta Platforms Inc.’s Threads as the most viable alternative. In response to a question on X about his status on the Bluesky board, Dorsey responded with a “no.”