Jason Citron Steps Down as CEO of Social Chat App Discord

Jason Citron, co-founder of popular social chat app Discord, resigned as the company’s chief executive on Wednesday.

Citron said in a statement that the new CEO is Humam Sakhnini, a 15-year veteran of the video game industry. Sakhnini was previously vice-president of Activision, the game publisher behind titles such as Call of Duty and Candy Crush.

Discord was released as early as this year and is valued at around $15 billion by private investors in 2021. The app is particularly popular among gamers, with over 200 million users.

Citron will remain on the company’s board of directors and will become Sakinini’s advisor, he said in a statement. Sakhnini helped oversee Activision when Microsoft bought it for $69 billion in 2023 and resigned from the company shortly after the acquisition.

in Interview Using VentureBeat, a game publication that previously reported on management changes, Citron said he was “a more builder, an early stage guy” and “hiring someone like Humam is a step in that direction.”

Discord was founded in 2015 by Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy.

The company grew over the years and gained particularly popularity during the pandemic, when interest in video games reached its peak. In 2021, Discord discussed acquisitions in the $10 billion range with Microsoft, but no deals were made.

Last year, Citron testified at an online congressional hearing on child safety, where the senator grilled him and Chief Executives of Meta, Tiktok and X on safe lapses on social media platforms.

Discord makes money primarily from premium subscription services, but in recent years it has expanded its advertising by people using the app and revenue from so-called microtransactions.