Jack Dorsey believes Elon Musk was the right owner for Twitter

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey called Elon Musk the “only alternative” for owning the platform, Insider reports.

Elon Musk took over Twitter late last year, and he’s been quite controversial since then. Jack Dorsey, who served as Twitter CEO for years, was initially one of the advocates of Musk’s takeover, even though he later said Musk might not be the best possible leader for the platform.

However, Dorsey has now softened his stance and said Musk was the “only alternative” to prevent Twitter from failing in the hands of “hedge funds and Wall Street activists.” He added that Twitter could never survive as a public company.

Jack Dorsey says Elon Musk’s takeover protected Twitter from Wall Street activists

Asking about efforts to restore Twitter’s fortunes, Dorsey said, “We did everything to avert. Ultimately the failure did not have dual-class shares. That’s not something that can be fixed. Can you explain in detail another solution?” Former Twitter CEO continued, “All launches you see today were things team built ready to go. Please enlighten us.”

Despite calling Musk the “only alternative” and “singular solution I trust” to make Twitter a private company, Dorsey also criticized billionaire behavior. He said Musk didn’t act right after realizing the bad timing for taking over the company. He also added that the board should not have forced the company’s selling.

When the acquisition went rogue, Musk could back out of the deal by paying $1 billion as a break-up fee. Dorsey now says, “I think he should have walked away and paid the $1b.”

Elon Musk has made drastic changes to Twitter since his takeover, and the platform now claims to be a safer place with more respect for free speech. Of course, Twitter is now more focused on making money. The platform has dropped verification badges from legacy accounts and forced previously-verified users to pay $8 a month for a badge.

Musk has also announced a per-article charging feature for Twitter, allowing publications to charge users for reading an occasional article. The feature goes live this month.