Hedge fund Elliott Management has amassed a stake in Twitter and is pushing for changes, including removal of the social media company's chief executive officer Jack Dorsey, said two people familiar with the matter.
Twitter is one of the few US technology companies headed, but not controlled, by one of its founders. It has given shareholders equal voting rights, making Mr Dorsey, who owns only about 2 per cent of the firm, vulnerable to a challenge from an activist investor such as Elliott.
Twitter shares fell last year when the company disclosed that its platform experienced glitches that hindered its ability to target advertisements and share data with partners.
The San Francisco-based company's reluctance to expand beyond its core platform has left it with limited scale compared with its larger social media peers.
Elliott, founded by billionaire Paul Singer, will be seeking to install its own nominees to Twitter's eight-member board when three of the company's directors stand for election at its upcoming annual shareholder meeting, the sources said on Friday. It is not clear who Elliott would like to replace Mr Dorsey with and how big its stake in Twitter is.
The New York-based hedge fund has over US$40 billion (S$55.7 billion) in assets under management and has in recent months targeted firms ranging from eBay to SoftBank Group.
The sources asked not to be identified as the matter is confidential.
Elliott declined to comment. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Dorsey, 43, is one of Silicon Valley's most prominent entrepreneurs and also runs Square Inc, a mobile payments company he co-founded.
While investors have tolerated this arrangement since 2015 when Mr Dorsey became Twitter's CEO for the second time, his announcement in November that he would like to move to Africa for up to six months raised questions among analysts about his management.
Mr Dorsey, who helped conceive Twitter in 2006, first served as CEO until 2008, when he was replaced by one of the co-founders Ev Williams.
Mr Williams had accused Mr Dorsey of being a poor manager and not focusing enough on Twitter's profitability.
Mr Dorsey returned as interim CEO after his predecessor Dick Costolo stepped down.
This article originally appeared on The Straits Times.
