Activist investor said seeking to oust Twitter chief Dorsey

An activist investor known as a major Republican political supporter wants to wrest control of Twitter from co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, US media has reported.

Elliott Management, founded by Jewish billionaire Paul Singer, has acquired a stake in the social media firm and wants to remove Dorsey, CNBC and Bloomberg news said over the weekend, citing unnamed sources.

The firm pushed for the change stating that Dorsey’s attention is divided between running Twitter and his financial transactions startup, Square, and that Dorsey intends to live part of each year in Africa.

Singer is also the founder of Start-Up Nation Central, a Tel Aviv-based non-profit that seeks to connect business and government leaders around the world with the Israeli people and technologies that can solve their most pressing challenges.

Twitter early this month reported that it added millions of new users and boosted ad revenue in the fourth quarter, sparking optimism over its growth prospects.

Dorsey said during an earnings call that the results capped “a great year for Twitter” and that Twitter has been able to boost users by making the service “more instantly relevant.”

“This is an incredibly strong foundation to build upon,” he told analysts.

The latest report suggested Twitter is making headway, as it seeks to keep pace with bigger social networks like Facebook and Instagram, while it works to filter out abuse and manipulation.

Dorsey has stressed that a priority for Twitter is to “increase healthy public conversation” by rooting out inappropriate content and misinformation.

Despite his plans to spend part of the year living in Africa, Dorsey said he will not be hampered by his travel.

“We do need to figure out how to build a company that is distributed, that is not burdened by time zones but advantaged by them,” he said.