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SAN FRANCISCO: The board of Twitter expressed support for Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey after a management review prompted by an investor’s effort to push him out of the job.
“The committee expressed its confidence in management and recommended that the current structure remain in place,” the board said in a regulatory filing. The board cited Twitter’s “significantly improving product” and financial performance in the third quarter when revenue grew 14 percent to $936 million.
Earlier this year, Dorsey fought off an attempt by activist investor Elliott Management to oust him from his job by agreeing to growth targets.
In March, Twitter made a deal with key investors to end an effort to oust Dorsey, creating a new committee on the board of directors to keep tabs on company leadership.
The plan called for fresh investment in Twitter by private equity group Silver Lake, and a pledge by the social media group to launch a $2 billion share repurchase plan.
The deal also enabled the hedge fund Elliot Management which had been pressing to remove Dorsey to get its partner Jesse Cohn a seat on the board of the firm.
As part of the agreement, Twitter created a temporary board committee to “build on our regular evaluation of Twitter’s leadership structure.” The deal bought time for Dorsey, who is also CEO of financial tech company Square, to show Elliott he could run two public companies.
Twitter had been facing pressure by Elliott Management, which owns about four percent of the company, to replace Dorsey, amid concerns he has spread himself too thin by running Twitter along with the digital payments firm Square.
The board’s endorsement of Dorsey also comes as the social network faces intense pressure to combat election-related misinformation around the United States presidential election.
