Bluesky Social CEO Jay Graber is stepping down from the role, clearing the way for venture capitalist Toni Schneider to succeed in her place as the company charts its next phases of growth.
The leadership change was first reported by Wired, a tech and political affairs publication that has enjoyed a cozy relationship with the decentralized social platform that offers substantially similar features to X (formerly Twitter) and which has cultivated a user base in the tens of millions of disenfranchised social media users over the past few years.
Bluesky Social is the largest service built on the decentralized Authentication Transfer (AT) Protocol, with Graber leading the charge as the social platform experienced seismic, and occasionally turbulent, growth amid political shifts at other services.
Graber joined Bluesky in 2019 when the project was still housed within Twitter as an initiative exploring decentralized technologies for the social web. She became Bluesky’s first CEO in 2021 after the project spun out into an independent company.
According to Bluesky’s most recent Transparency Report, the service expanded from roughly 25 million users to more than 40 million during 2025. Despite that growth, it remains far smaller than rival services such as Threads, which parent company Meta Platforms says has around 400 million users.
That growth didn’t come without its share of challenges: Many users feel the service that was supposed to be a refuge from politically-tinged networks has curried favor with its sizable progressive user base, with its safety teams turning a blind eye clamping down on harassment and abuse against popular and progressive users while turning a blind eye toward the same problematic behavior that targets other political and social groups.
Things are likely to change under Schneider, who brings experience running a more-mature business. He previously served as chief executive of Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, from 2006 to 2014 and briefly returned to the role in 2024 while Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg took a sabbatical. Schneider is currently a partner at venture capital firm True Ventures and will continue in that role while serving as Bluesky’s interim chief executive.
In a blog post announcing the leadership change, Schneider said his focus will be helping the platform scale. He described the goal as ensuring Bluesky becomes “not just the best open social app, but the foundation for a whole new generation of user-owned networks.”
Graber will remain with the company as Chief Innovation Officer, a new position created to focus on Bluesky’s underlying technology. The role aligns with her background as a software engineer and her longstanding emphasis on the platform’s decentralized infrastructure.
Bluesky’s board of directors will oversee the search for a permanent chief executive. Members include Jeremie Miller, Kinjal Shah and TechDirt publisher Mike Masnick. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey previously served on the board but stepped down in 2024.
