Bluesky CEO Jay Graber Is Stepping Down

Jay Graber is stepping down arsenic caput of Bluesky, the societal media level exclusively announced to WIRED. Venture capitalist Toni Schneider volition beryllium the interim CEO until a imperishable replacement is found.

“As Bluesky matures, the institution needs a seasoned relation focused connected scaling and execution, portion I instrumentality to what I bash best: gathering caller things,” Graber wrote successful a connection astir the unit change.

Graber joined Bluesky successful 2019, erstwhile it was a probe task wrong Twitter focused connected processing a decentralized model for the societal web. She became the company’s archetypal main enforcement serviceman successful 2021, erstwhile it spun retired into an autarkic entity. She oversaw the platform’s singular emergence and the increasing pains it experienced arsenic it transformed from a quirky Twitter offshoot to a full-fledged alternate to X.

Schneider tells WIRED that helium intends to assistance Bluesky “become not conscionable the champion unfastened societal app, but the instauration for a full caller procreation of user-owned networks.”

Schneider, who volition proceed moving arsenic a spouse astatine the task superior steadfast True Ventures portion astatine Bluesky, was antecedently CEO of the Wordpress genitor company, Automattic, from 2006 to 2014. He besides served arsenic its CEO again successful 2024 portion apical enforcement Matt Mullenweg went connected a sabbatical. During that time, Schneider met Graber and became an advisor to Bluesky’s leadership. In a blog station announcing his caller role, Schneider said helium plans to stress scaling, describing his occupation arsenic “to assistance acceptable up Bluesky's adjacent signifier of growth.”

This isn’t the extremity for Graber and Bluesky. She volition modulation to go the company’s main innovation officer, a relation focused connected Bluesky’s exertion stack alternatively than its concern operations. The presumption was created for her. Graber, who began her vocation arsenic a bundle engineer, has ever sounded the astir enthusiastic erstwhile discussing Bluesky’s exertion alternatively than its gross streams.

Bluesky’s committee of directors volition name the adjacent imperishable CEO. The members see Jabber laminitis Jeremie Miller, crypto-focused VC Kinjal Shah, TechDirt laminitis Mike Masnick, and Graber. (Twitter laminitis Jack Dorsey was primitively portion of the committee but discontinue successful 2024.) This means Graber volition person input connected her successor. The endowment hunt is inactive successful aboriginal stages.

It’s a pivotal infinitesimal for Bluesky. The institution recovered occurrence by positioning itself arsenic a progressive replacement for Elon Musk’s X. That helped substance the platform’s emergence arsenic X’s hard-right ideological crook prompted immoderate users to question caller societal networks. In 2025, Bluesky grew from 25 cardinal users to implicit 40 million, according to its yearly Transparency Report. Its squad is optimistic it tin proceed expanding portion staying existent to its roots. Masnick says Schneider’s tenure astatine Automattic “proves you physique a existent concern astir unfastened software.”

As acold arsenic societal platforms go, though, it’s inactive a niche offering, and 1 perpetually taxable to pundit-class grumblings astir however it’s excessively woke oregon not woke enough. (Just past week, successful a speech with WIRED, Dorsey said helium wasn’t blessed with the level due to the fact that of “ideology.”) Meta’s competing app, Threads, has astir 400 cardinal users, oregon astir 10 times much progressive accounts than Bluesky. Even if it’s not funny successful chasing the benignant of hockey-stick maturation traditionally favored successful Silicon Valley, the institution does request to person much radical and institutions to usage its level if it wants to involvement a assertion to the relation of integer commons.