Twitter’s African Dream: Why Jack Dorsey believes ‘Africa will define the future’

The social media giant has made moves to the motherland as it announces its plans to open its African headquarters in Ghana.

WORDS BY: Yolisa Mkele

Twitter, the world’s largest platform for people to compare things to Hitler, is putting down roots in Africa, specifically in Ghana. Earlier this month, the social media giant officially announced that the West African nation would be serving as its African headquarters and is already looking to fill a dozen positions in the country.

According to a blog on the company’s website, Twitter chose Ghana because “Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate. Furthermore, Ghana’s recent appointment to host The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area aligns with our overarching goal to establish a presence in the region that will support our efforts to improve and tailor our service across Africa”.

🇬🇭 Twitter is now present on the continent.

Thank you Ghana and @NAkufoAddo. #TwitterGhana https://t.co/tt7KR3kvDg

— jack (@jack) April 12, 2021

Just last week, CEO and co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey met virtually with Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo and the result seems to have been to establish the company’s presence on the continent. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company will not build a physical premises as yet. Instead all the new employees will be working remotely.

“Whenever we enter new markets, we work hard to ensure that we are not just investing in the talent that we hire, but also investing in local communities and the social fabric that supports them,” explained Twitter’s media statement.

Back in 2019, Dorsey spent three weeks travelling in Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa, meeting with tech stakeholders about his company’s expansion into the continent and it is likely that this is where much of the thinking around having headquarters in Ghana came from. At the time he said, “Africa will define the future.”

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