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A day after Twitter (TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about a foundational internet law alongside Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, prominent NYU business professor Scott Galloway called for Dorsey’s ouster.
In an interview Wednesday with Yahoo Finance Live, Galloway, who has been critical of Dorsey’s decision to simultaneously serve as CEO of both Twitter payments firm Square (SQ), said the social network should cut Dorsey off from his current role.
“He should be fired,” Galloway said. “I mean this is a big company with thousands of employees that plays a big role in the discourse of society, and about 1 p.m. every day he peaces out and he goes to another firm.”
Galloway isn’t the only one who’s taken shots at Dorsey’s dual roles as CEO. In March, Elliot Management sought to oust Dorsey from Twitter after the social network’s CEO said he planned to move to Africa for 3 to 6 months while continuing to lead both Twitter and Square.
Twitter and Elliot eventually came to an agreement that left Dorsey in place, and gave Elliot and Silver Lake, which also joined in the scrum, seats on Twitter’s board.
Galloway, an investor in Twitter, however, still isn’t satisfied with Dorsey’s divided attention.
“The fact that he's a part-time...renders him totally incapable of providing the attention and leadership that this company needs,” Galloway said. He added that Twitter has failed to innovate and “scarily” looks like it did in 2015, the year Dorsey started his most recent stint as CEO of Twitter.
Twitter declined when reached for comment on Galloway’s criticism.
‘I honestly didn’t think we’d land on Jack’
If Twitter were to fire Dorsey, it would not be the first time it axed its co-founder. Back in 2008, Twitter fired Dorsey as CEO while the fledgling site faced innumerable challenges including frequent site crashes, as Roger Parloff reported for Yahoo Finance. The ousted Twitter CEO went on to found Square and in 2015 returned to replace Dick Costolo, whose leadership disappointed Wall Street.
While the board initially said it would only hire a CEO who could lead full-time, it eventually reversed course and allowed Dorsey to lead again. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams wrote in a Medium post at the time that the board had “discussed ad nauseam the challenges of Jack doing both his CEO jobs at once.”
“I honestly didn’t think we’d land on Jack when we started unless he could step away from Square. But ultimately, we decided it was worth it,” Williams wrote, explaining that Dorsey’s ties to Twitter inform “a depth of vision and authenticity of voice.”