Twitter’s board of directors gave a brief update to its search for a new CEO, saying it would only consider candidates “who are in a position to make a full-time commitment to Twitter.”
This seems like a relatively obvious statement for a CEO candidate running a company like Twitter but, at the same time, seems a little bit like a nod at the current — and potential — situation of Twitter’s interim CEO Jack Dorsey running both Twitter and Square. That kind of relationship has worked for Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, but it appears that for the time being it isn’t something Twitter’s board is satisfied with.
In the statement, board member Peter Currie said the board “has the utmost confidence in the strong management team Dick has assembled and in Jack Dorsey’s ability to lead the company on an interim basis” while Twitter searches for its next CEO.
At the Bloomberg Tech conference last week, Dick Costolo — who will step down from the CEO role — responded to some skepticism about whether it was a legitimate CEO search, saying a specific search was underway. In the statement today, Twitter said it has retained Spencer Stuart to help search for the next CEO candidate. But at the same time, Costolo didn’t rule out Dorsey as a CEO candidate.
“Jack is obviously the inventor and co-founder, just as important and more importantly he has this fluency in the way he thinks about the product and its potential that’s almost remarkable,” he said at the conference.
“We have dinner every Tuesday night where we think about the product. Jack has said this himself, this is about stepping into this role and letting the board do its work, and provide the space and time to do its work. He has this clarity of thinking about the product that doesn’t bring with it this conceptual baggage.”