Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey strongly criticizes Elon Musk’s handling of the app – New York Daily News

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says “it all went south” when Elon Musk bought the social media company, saying Musk’s timing was bad and he should have pulled out of the deal.

Dorsey was asked on Friday by users on his new upstart app “Bluesky” whether he still thought Musk was the ideal owner for Twitter. Business Insider reported that Dorsey flatly declined.

“No. I also don̵[ads1]7;t think he acted right after realizing his timing was bad,” Dorsey wrote.

As the $44 billion deal appeared to fall through, Twitter’s board threatened to sue Musk to force the deal. Dorsey said the board’s efforts to force the sale were also a bad idea.

“It all went south,” Dorsey wrote.

“If Elon or anyone wanted to buy the company, all they had to do was give a price that the board thought was better than what the company could do independently,” he continued.

“This is true of all public companies. Was I optimistic? Yes. Did I have the last word? No. I believe him [Musk] should have gone and paid $1 billion.”

During his initial deal to buy Twitter, Musk could have walked away if he paid a $1 billion breakup fee.

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Since he bought Twitter last October, Musk has been heavily criticized for a series of new policies.

In addition to introducing sweeping layoffs, Musk has also begun requiring people to pay for blue verification badges, rolled back protections against hate speech, and until recently began labeling certain media outlets as “government-funded.”

The latter decision was overturned after an international alliance of broadcasters published an open letter asking Twitter to correct the “misleading label” it used for four foreign news organizations.

It’s possible that these changes may have also contributed to Dorsey’s hurt feelings toward the Tesla owner.

His comments were a reversal from last year, when Dorsey called him the “single solution that I trust” to take Twitter private. He added at the time that Musk’s plan to make Twitter “maximally trusted and broadly inclusive” was the “right one.”

Dorsey’s new site, Bluesky, is positioning itself as a Twitter competitor.

The platform has been creating buzz in recent weeks as an invite-only option for the Musk-led forum. It was trending on Twitter last week, boasting some big name converts like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and model Chrissy Teigen.