Signal founder and CEO Moxie Marlinspike announced his plans to step down as the company’s CEO in a blog post on Monday.
“It’s a new year, and I’ve decided it’s good time to replace myself as the CEO of Signal,” he said.
He pointed out that WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton will serve as CEO on an interim basis. Marlinspike will remain on Signal’s board while he looks for someone to fill the CEO position permanently.
Marlinspike started the non-profit Signal Foundation with Acton in 2018, which oversees the Signal app. That was after Acton left WhatsApp, a messaging platform he founded in 2009 and sold to Facebook in 2014.
According to Signal’s website, Acton left WhatsApp in 2017 due to differences over the use of customer data and targeted advertising.
Signal, an end-to-end encrypted messaging platform, became popular after being backed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and whistleblower and privacy advocate Edward Snowden.
For more information, read the original story in Reuters.