Jack Dorsey’s Square has changed its name to Block.
Jack Dorsey at a hearing in 2018
The 45-year-old businessman resigned as chief executive of Twitter just a few days ago, and he’s now been making changes to his other company, Square, which has now changed its name to Block.
Block is now the name of the overarching company, and smaller businesses owned by Block – including the digital-payments company Square, and music streaming platform Tidal – will keep their original names.
The move is similar to one made recently by Mark Zuckerberg, who changed the name of the overarching company he runs from Facebook to Meta.
In a similar fashion, Facebook is still the name of the popular social networking service, and other companies under Meta such as Instagram and WhatsApp have also retained their names.
Dorsey has said the decision to change his company’s name to Block comes as he wants to separate his other businesses from the Square brand.
He said in a statement: "We built the Square brand for our seller business, which is where it belongs.
“Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same.
"No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy."
The businesses under Block will be known as “building blocks” that form the structure of the brand.
And in a tweet also confirming the news, the company wrote: “Block is @Square, @CashApp, @spiralbtc, @TIDAL, @TBD54566975, and our foundational teams who support them. We’re here to build simple tools to increase access to the economy. (sic)”
While the separate account for Square added: “We’re changing our company name so we can give the full @Square brand to our Seller business. So now we need a name to tie @Square, @CashApp, @TIDAL, and @TBD54566975 together into one. That name is Block. (sic)”
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