Mastodon CEO To Transfer Ownership To A Nonprofit Organization

The decentralized social media network Mastodon announced a new plan to transfer ownership to a non-profit organization in Europe.

According to the official announcement on its website, founder and CEO Eugen Rochko will hand management and assets to a new administrative structure that is yet to be announced as Mastodon’s team is still working on the best jurisdiction and legal structure in Europe.

“The next 6 months will see the transformation of the Mastodon structures, shifting away from the early days’ single-person ownership and enshrining the envisioned independence in a dedicated European not-for-profit entity,” states the document.

Rochko’s role will switch for him to focus on product strategy, in alliance with his principles of keeping the application “free of the control of a single wealthy individual.”

This strategy to avoid giving the power of a network to just one person comes right after Mark Zuckerberg ended Meta’s fact-checking program—some critics speculate that Zuckerberg’s decision may have been influenced by political considerations, including past tensions with upcoming President Trump and efforts to navigate business interests in a polarized environment.

Mastodon—founded in 2016—expects to continue developing tools where users can share and create authentic content, and differentiate itself from other business models like Elon Musk’s X and Zuckerberg’s Meta platforms. Its communications team also explained that they keep working and developing its fediverse project and invited people to join the creative team or donate to reach the operating goal of €5 million in 2025.