Jason Citron (born September 21, 1984) is an American businessman[1] who is the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Discord, an instant messaging social platform.[2][3] He is also a founder of OpenFeint, a social platform for mobile games.[4][5]
Biography
Early life
Jason Citron was born on September 21, 1984,[6] in San Francisco, California, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family with a background in business and technology, later growing up in South Florida.[7][8][9] He became interested in technology after being gifted a computer by his grandfather, as well as his love of video games, citing Final Fantasy VI as his favorite game and that "I was a Squaresoft fanboy, and I still am." He learned how to write code in QBasic at the age of 13 with the help of a friend, with his first program being a text-based role-playing game.[7] He later attended Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Game Design and Development in 2004.
Citron's career began with the founding of Aurora Feint, a mobile game development studio that later evolved into OpenFeint, a social platform for mobile games.[10] OpenFeint became a success, eventually being sold to the Japanese company GREE for $104 million in 2011.[11][12] The following year, Citron founded Hammer & Chisel, a gaming company that aimed to create high-quality mobile games, releasing the game Fates Forever in 2014.[13] However, the company pivoted towards developing a chat service when Citron noticed the need for better communication tools for gamers, leading to the creation of Discord in 2015. Discord quickly became a popular communication platform, initially among gamers but later expanding to a wider audience.[14] By 2024, under Citron's leadership, Discord had grown into a multi-billion-dollar company with over 150 million active users per month.
Public testimony and safety initiatives (2023–2024)
Citron represented Discord at a United States Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on 31 January 2024 titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,” submitting written testimony on Discord’s trust & safety practices and youth protection features.[15][16] During 2023–2024 Discord announced or expanded several teen-safety measures, including the opt-in Family Center for parents and guardians and the Teen Safety Assist initiative (safety alerts on new DMs and sensitive-media blurring, enabled by default for teens).[17][18][19]
Restructuring and scale (2024)
In January 2024 Citron announced a workforce reduction of about 17% (≈170 employees) to “sharpen [Discord’s] focus” following rapid headcount growth since 2020.[20][21] Around this period Citron cited “a little over 200 million monthly active users” globally and ~870 employees.[22]
IPO considerations and advertising business (2024–2025)
Reports in early 2025 indicated Discord was in early talks with banks about a potential public listing; the company was last valued at $15 billion in a 2021 fundraising round.[23] In 2024 Discord also began cautiously expanding advertising beyond its subscriptions-led model, introducing Quests and later a Video Quests format aimed primarily at game publishers.[24]
Stepping down from Discord (April 2025)
Citron announced in April 2025 that he was stepping down as Discord's CEO but will remain on the board of directors. He was succeeded as CEO by Humam Sakhnini, who was the former president of Activision Blizzard and King.[25]
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