Bluesky is moving into its next phase, with current CEO Jay Graber stepping down in order to make way for a leader who’s more equipped to drive the platform’s next stage of growth.
Graber announced the move in a March 9 post on the Bluesky blog, explaining that she will be transitioning to become Bluesky's chief innovation officer, calling it a role that’s more focused on creating things, as opposed to focusing on user expansion.
As explained by Graber: “As Bluesky matures, the company needs a seasoned operator focused on scaling and execution, while I return to what I do best: building new things. As part of this transition, Toni Schneider, former CEO of Automattic and partner at True Ventures, will join our team as interim CEO, while our board runs a search for a permanent chief executive.”
Graber has been in charge of Bluesky since August 2021, when Bluesky was still a project within Twitter, under the guidance of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Enticed by the potential of open source protocol, Dorsey sought to re-create Twitter for the decentralized internet, with the vision for Bluesky being a social platform that would empower users to control their experience, and manage algorithmic amplification as they saw fit.
Graber has taken the app to 40 million users, with Bluesky seeing a big surge in activity following the U.S. election in 2024. Many viewed this as a response to X owner Elon Musk’s involvement in politics.
But since that initial post-election surge, Bluesky growth has slowed significantly.
Between September and November in 2024, Bluesky added an additional 15 million users, rising to 20 million users by the end of that month, according to Hollywood Reporter. It added another 10 million users between November 2024 and March 2025, taking it to 30 million total users. Then it reached 40 million users seven months later.
So while the Musk backlash did bring 15 million users to the app, it’s been a slow grind ever since. Bluesky usage has also been in steady decline, according to open source data on the app’s activity.
Which is likely why Graber is now stepping aside.
Graber says that transitioning into her new role will enable her to explore the next frontier of what decentralized social can be, while a new CEO will look to scale the app.
It’ll be interesting to see whether a new leader can be found to boost the app’s relevance and usage, as well as make it a bigger consideration in the social media landscape. Meta’s Threads has arguably now supplanted Bluesky as the leading Twitter alternative for those migrating from X, and it’ll take a significant shift for Bluesky to challenge Threads on overall usage. Notably, Threads is now up to 400 million monthly active users.
But Bluesky’s user community is passionate, and the platform does host a range of insightful, expert communities.
Maybe this is an opportunity for the app to move to the next stage.
