Shares of Twitter (TWTR) are exploding this morning.
All on reports Elliott Management found and billionaire investor, Paul Singer seeks to remove CEO Jack Dorsey from his post. There are concerns that Dorsey’s attention is far too divided between running Twitter and Square, and his plans to move to Africa for the next few months.
There are also concerns that under Dorsey, Twitter isn’t poised to capitalize on the U.S. presidential election, the 2020 Olympics, or even the coronavirus story.
Analysts believe there’s a good chance Dorsey could be removed.
“Particularly given Jack Dorsey, as impressive as he may be with dual CEO roles, a dedicated COO feels to us like the easiest and most important hole to fix and would have been one of our first recommendations,” said Michael Levine, an analysts at Pivotal Research Group, as quoted by CNBC. “To the extent efforts to oust Dorsey are successful, having a strong one-two CEO/COO combination could only help to improve a company which we think likely stands to benefit the most from more operational improvements.”
“I think product development has been anemic,” added Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at NYU, as quoted by NPR. “I think their business model is flawed, But, more than anything, you know, the lowest lying fruit here is to find a full time CEO.”
At the moment, shares of TWTR are up nearly 9% at $36.10.
Twitter Impresses with Strong User Numbers
While the company fell short of profits, it did beat on revenue and active users.
EPS of 25 cents was below expectations for 29 cents. Revenue of $1.01 billion did come in above estimates for $996.7 million. And active users did jump to 152 million as compared to expectations for 147.5 million.
The company also provided first quarter revenue guidance on the light side, with estimates of between $825 million and $885 million, as compared to expectations for $873 million.
