First-ever Tweet on Sale for $48 Million

A copy of the first-ever tweet, by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is offered for almost $48 million on nonfungible token marketplace OpenSea.

Sina Estavi, the chief executive officer of Malaysian blockchain service Bridge Oracle, announced that he would put the NFT version tweet, which dates back to 21 March 2006, up for sale.

Estavi paid $2.9 million for the tweet read: “just setting up my twttr” in March last year.

Following the sudden announcement, he promised to donate 50% of the proceeds to the charity GiveDirectly, which gives cash to people living in poverty.

On his part, Dorsey responded on Twitter: “why not 99% of it?” He directed his response to Estavi, GiveDirectly and Tesla Founder (and recent Twitter board member) Elon Musk.

https://twitter.com/jack/status/1511874906614554632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1511874906614554632%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2022-04-07%2Fdorsey-s-first-tweet-offered-for-48-million-on-nft-marketplace

Last November, Dorsey stepped down as Twitter’s CEO and was replaced by the then chief technical officer Parag Agrawal.

“It’s finally time for me to leave,” he wrote in a statement, adding that the company was “ready to move on” and he had “deep” trust in his replacement. “I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart, and soul. It’s his time to lead.”

“There’s a lot of talk about the importance of a company being ‘founder-led’. Ultimately I believe that’s severely limiting and a single point of failure,” he wrote in an attached email he sent to staff. “Why not stay or become chair? I believe it’s really important to give Parag the space he needs to lead.”