Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a major Twitter investor, has voiced support for CEO Jack Dorsey, insisting that he needs more time to revive the microblogging site’s fortunes.
Speaking to Bloomberg TV in Riyadh today, Alwaleed noted that Dorsey “just introduced many initiatives related to sport, NFL and otherwise, we have to give him some time,” adding: “We still can get a lot more out of the existing users rather than just going and looking for new users, which should also be pursued.”
Alwaleed and Kingdom Holding, of which the price owns 95%, together have a stake of about 5% in Twitter. However, while Alwaleed said that his investment, valued at roughly $1 billion, is currently at “break-even level”, he remained clearly enthusiastic about Twitter.
He expressed his enduring belief that Twitter, shares of which have dropped by 18% this year, still has a bright future, declaring: “We are long term investors.”