Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter has stepped down from the board of the Nasdaq exchange. The unexplained move may signal a war between the social media giant and the Nasdaq, who are angry that the company’s practice of gauging market sentiment about a company via its share price rather than stock value itself has become a way to determine company listings.
The New York Times reported that Dorsey stepped down from the board due to a conflict. His job as CEO makes him an independent of both the exchange and its regulator, but since his personal Twitter stock is not traded publicly, he wouldn’t have a direct link to the share price.
Because of Twitter’s image, share price is often taken as a sign of a company’s state of affairs, CNBC reported. And while Twitter was the first social media site to go public, Nasdaq plans to make changes to the way it offers listing to companies that are perceived to have less exposure to the public.
Related: Jack Dorsey’s Latest Move At Nasdaq Adds to the Mystery
One of the changes will include restricting the posting of prices on a company’s site and changing the cost per share. Shares are currently priced at between $38 and $42, which falls between average and above average. The change would create a higher per-share price that could indicate a company’s engagement with the public is much higher than the company might not disclose to the public.
Other changes include expanding the data calculation and regulations from which companies will need to file in order to have a listing. This will make it less clear that Twitter’s share price signals investors’ attitude toward the company, reports said.
Listings are just one area of big tech’s style gap between the social media companies and other industries. While Facebook, Snapchat and most other social media sites are valued as a company, Uber is valued at a whopping $120 billion, according to The New York Times.
As the Times points out, since Uber has gone public, its business practices have been ruled illegal in several countries, it has become the first U.S. company to be banned in Europe, and its image and leadership has been considered to be questionable and unethical.
Twitter’s stock has shed 90 percent of its value since its IPO, and it has seen wild fluctuations in its share price over the past couple of years. The company even lost control of its own @Twitter Inc Twitter, which is now used by other Twitter companies such as Dots.com and, most recently, Viral Noor.