Who is Parler CEO John Matze?
Alternative social media site Parler seems to have sprung up overnight
Alternative social media site Parler seems to have sprung up overnight after fed-up conservatives announced they were making accounts because of Twitter's censorship policies.
CONSERVATIVES USE TWITTER TO PUSH ALTERNATIVE PARLER APP AFTER TRUMP TWEET FLAGGED
But the site has been around since 2018 and was founded by John Matze Jr. and Jared Thomson. Both studied computer science at the University of Denver.
Now Matze is Parler's CEO and Thomson is chief technical officer, according to LinkedIn.
John Matze Jr. is CEO of Parler. (Twitter)
Matze graduated from the University of Denver in 2014 and teamed up with Thomson to create Parler "after being exhausted with a lack of transparency in big tech, ideological suppresssion and privacy abuse," according to the app's website.
WHICH SOCIAL MEDIA SITE HAS THE MOST USERS?
The site added nearly one million users in a week after being promoted by pundits including Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist and radio show host Jesse Kelly. The backlash came after Twitter added a warning to one of President Trump's tweets saying he violated its "policy against abusive behavior" in June.
Matze is "happy" to be adding users even though Parler hasn't turned a profit, he told FOX Business' Stuart Varney in June.
"We are still growing," he said. "I'm just happy that we are growing and getting a lot of users on. It's really nice to actually see the community coming together like this."
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
Pundit Dan Bongino is also pushing Parler after announcing earlier in June that he had taken an ownership stake in Parler.