Twitter Names Jack Dorsey CEO, Adam Bain Becomes COO, Dick Costolo Steps Down From Board

After four months of running under Jack Dorsey interim chief executive, today Twitter finally named him as its permanent leader. The man who helped co-found Twitter in 2006 is now its full-time CEO again.

In addition to the new permanent role, Adam Bain is becoming COO — Bain used to handle revenue and partnerships at Twitter. Dorsey also announced that a new board is in the works. The company already announced on Twitter that Dick Costolo will be stepping down from the board. Dorsey will continue to serve as a board member but no longer as chairman.

“There are currently no plans to provide Mr. Dorsey with direct compensation for his role as Chief Executive Officer,” Twitter writes in the SEC document announcing the changes.

Dorsey is juggling the job with a couple of other roles. In addition to already being the social network’s chairman of the board, he is also the CEO of Square, an e-commerce startup that he co-founded in 2009 and is reportedly slated for a public offering sometime this year. Insiders at Square have been quietly assuring everyone that Dorsey plans to stick around as CEO. This won’t be the only change happening at Twitter, as it’s reportedly reshaping its board, with former CEO Dick Costolo expected to step down.

After a Re/code article was published citing sources saying that Dorsey’s new permanent job was imminent, Twitter’s stock popped a few percentage points followed by a sharp decline and another rise.

Throughout his interim CEO period, Dorsey has remained committed to leading Square, as well. But the fact that Dorsey was already running another company when he took over as interim CEO of Twitter from Dick Costolo may have been one of the sticking points when considering him for the job long-term: Chris Sacca, a vocal Twitter investor, claims that a Twitter board member was one of the people who took issue with Dorsey doing both jobs simultaneously.

Some may have believed that the CEO role would always go to Dorsey, but more widely the move brings to an end one of the more-speculated leadership vacancies in the tech industry. Other names that we had heard floated for the job included insiders Adam Bain (head of revenue and partnerships and now COO) and CFO Anthony Noto; Jeff Weiner from LinkedIn; Bradley Horowtiz from Google and Padmasree Warrior.

We may now have a name to engrave on the back of the chair at the top of the table, but it doesn’t make that seat any less hot.

Twitter’s stock has been on a roller coaster, with the company weathering questions about its user growth and engagement, leadership changes, and more existentially what it is as a product. That’s led many to debate whether the company, with its stock in a dip, would simply get snapped up by a bigger fish like Google.

In that regard, you can see how someone leading Twitter who has been connected to it and its bigger vision from the start could make a lot of sense. Now the question will be how Dorsey implements that legacy advantage.