Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger resign

UPDATE: September 25, 2018, 1:04 PM EST The general manager of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, issued a statement regarding the departure of the co-founders. This article has been updated to reflect this.

The two founders of Instagram leave the company, according to a report by The New York Times.

Managing Director Kevin Systrom and Technical Director Mike Krieger, who founded the social media platform in 2010, resigned. The publisher confirmed that "people with direct knowledge"

Informing the senior team of Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, Systrom and Krieger have not given any specific reason for their departure, according to the Time. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for about a billion dollars in a combination of cash and stock.

Systrom has posted a statement on the Instagram blog stating that he and Krieger "plan to take a little time to re-explore our curiosity and creativity."

Mike and I have been grateful for Instagram for eight years and six years for the Facebook team. We have grown from 13 to more than 1,000 offices worldwide, while building products used and valued by a community of more than one billion people. We are now ready for our next chapter.

We plan to take some time to explore our curiosity and creativity again. Building new things requires us to step back, to understand what inspires us and what the world needs; that is what we intend to do.

We remain excited for the future of Instagram and Facebook in the coming years, as we move from the leader to two users out of a billion. We look forward to seeing what these innovative and extraordinary companies will do next.

This is the latest in a wave of recent leadership departures, a particular headache for Facebook.

Facebook security officer Alex Stamos announced his departure from the company in March. His decision was made as a result of disputes over the amount of Facebook's revelations about governments who misuse the platform and changes within the organization, according to the New York Times.

Another Facebook-owned company, WhatsApp, saw CEO and co-founder Jan Koum leave in May, following the highly publicized privacy scandal of Cambridge Analytica. It was just six months after the departure of Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, to join the #DeleteFacebook movement.

Since Mark Zuckerberg's executive reshuffle last May, Facebook's restructuring into three product and engineering groups has been marked by a significant movement in Instagram. This reshuffle allowed product manager Chris Cox to oversee Instagram, as well as Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger.

Additional report by Sasha Lekach and Johnny Lieu.