Bluesky’s most prominent backer has left its board.
On Saturday, Jack Dorsey posted on X about grants for open protocols from his philanthropic Start Small initiative. This prompted someone to ask Dorsey if he was still on the Bluesky board, and he responded with a terse “no.” Dorsey did not answer any of the follow-up posts asking him to explain his departure.
It’s not clear when Dorsey left the board; as of Sunday morning, Bluesky’s corporate FAQ still identified him as a board member. Later that afternoon, the company published the following statement:
We sincerely thank Jack for his help funding and initiating the bluesky project. Today, Bluesky is thriving as an open source social network running on atproto, the decentralized protocol we have built.
With Jack’s departure, we are searching for a new board member for the Bluesky public benefit company who shares our commitment to building a social network that puts people in control of their experience. More to come!
Dorsey first announced Bluesky in 2019, back when he was still CEO of Twitter. He wrote that Twitter (now X) was “funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.”
Since then, Bluesky has become an independent public benefit corporation, led by CEO Jay Graber, with VC backing, and it opened to the general public in February.
Dorsey appears to have deleted his Bluesky account at some point last year, though his departure was only acknowledged at the time by a smattering of social media posts. (He also deleted his Instagram account.) Despite this, he remained the biggest name associated with the project.
Back on X, Dorsey has had a pretty active weekend. In addition to dropping corporate news, he’s also weighed in on the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, unfollowed nearly every other account, and posted, “don’t depend on corporations to grant you rights. defend them yourself using freedom technology. (you’re on one)”
This story has been updated with a statement from Bluesky confirming Dorsey’s departure.