Decentralized social network organization mastodon said Monday that it plans to create a new non-profit organization in Europe and hand over the ownership of the entities responsible for the key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components. This means that one person has no control over the entire project. The organization is trying to differentiate itself from social networks controlled by CEOs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

While the exact details have not been finalized, it means that the current CEO and creator of Mastodon, Eugen Rochko, will hand over the organizational management parts of the new entity and focus on the product strategy.

The organization said it will continue to host the mastodon.social and mastodon.online servers, where users can sign up and join the ActivityPub-based network. Mastodon now has 835,000 monthly active users spread over thousands of servers.

“When founder Eugen Rochko started working on Mastodon, his focus was to create the code and conditions for the type of social media he envisioned. The legal setup was a means to an end, a quick fix to allow him to continue operations. From the beginning, he stated that Mastodon would not be sold and would be free from the control of a wealthy individual, and he would ensure that since he was the person in control, the sole ultimate creator a decision,” said Mastodon to a blog post.

Last year, the company was formed a non-profit based in the US to get more funds and grants with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on the board. As a side effect, the organization lost its non-profit status in Germany at the same time.

While Mastodon relies on donations and sponsorships to operate, Bluesky, its main competitor working on a rival decentralized network, is reportedly raised a new round of funding from investors at a $700 million valuation.

The blog post noted that the new non-profit entity based in Europe will fully own the Mastodon GmbH for-profit entity. The organization is in the process of finalizing the location where the new entity will be built.

“We are taking the time to choose the appropriate jurisdiction and structure in Europe. Then we will determine what other (subsidiary) legal structure is needed to support operations and continuity,” said the post.

“Overall, we will focus on establishing appropriate governance and leadership frameworks that reflect the nature and purpose of Mastodon as a whole, and responsibly serve the community.”

Over the past few months, ownership of open-source projects has been a recurring topic in the news. For example, people doubt the control of some WordPress community projects is in the hands of WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg. Mastodon tries to avoid situations where only one person has decision-making power with the new structure now.