Twitter stock price surges by more than 11% at reports of Jack Dorsey exit

The stock price returned to just over its pre-market price less than a half hour after the market opened

Twitter's stock price surged 12.6 per cent before the markets opened in the wake of reports that Jack Dorsey was stepping down as the company's CEO.

On Monday, Twitter's stock price was $47.07, but news that Mr Dorsey would leave the social media platform spiked the price about 12.6 per cent, raising it to $53.01 pre-market.

When the markets opened at 9.30am EST, the company's price held around $50 per share.

CNBC first reported the alleged shakeup, citing anonymous sources close to the company. The company’s chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal, is set to replace Mr Dorsey as chief executive.

As of Monday morning, the surge was short lived. By 10am EST, the company’s stock price was just a dollar over its previous close price, hovering around $48.68.

Mr Dorsey is currently the CEO of both Twitter and the digital payment processing company Square. Elliott Management, a major stakeholder in Twitter, previously voiced its desire to see the company helmed by someone other than Mr Dorsey.

Paul Singer, the billionaire founder of Elliot Management, has said in the past he did not think that Mr Dorsey should be at the helm of both Twitter and Square, and suggested he ought to step down from one to focus on the other.

If the reports prove accurate, whoever takes over as the head of Twitter will step into an aggressive monetesation campaign. The company said earlier this year it hoped to double its annual revenue in 2023, largely through the monetisation of some 315m daily users.

The company recently launched a premium, subscription based version of the platform, called Twitter Blue. The subscription plan, which costs around $3 a month USD but is priced regionally, offers premium tools like bookmark management, ad-free reading, and an “undo” button giving users up to 30 seconds to undo a tweet.

This won’t be the first time Mr Dorsey leaves the social media company he helped found. He was forced out of Twitter in 2008, but later returned to the company in 2015.