Elon Musk Dethrones Barack Obama As Most Followed Person On Twitter
Over the last several months, Twitter has become a much different version of the popular social media site. Under Elon Musk's leadership, Twitter now has a significantly smaller staff, blue checkmarks, once relegated to verified accounts, are now available for anyone willing to pay a subscription, and tweets can be over 4,000 characters long, opposing Twitter's entire original intent.
Now, in a feat that will surprise no one, Musk is the most followed person on the site he owns, surpassing the former user with the most followers, the 44th President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama. Elon's account now has 133,082,891 followers at the time of writing, compared to former President Obama's 133,040,483 followers.
Although, given the fact that he is the sole owner of the website, this was likely only a matter of time. It's a little like saying you're the most popular person in your own home.
Elon's Twitter fame
It's worth noting that Elon is also the man who has gone to great lengths to ensure that everyone sees his tweets, and his acquisition of Twitter has been criticized as a vanity project and a poorly thought-out "free speech" crusade.
Both former President Obama's and Elon's high follower counts aren't too outlandish when you break it down. The former's Presidency was very high profile, and he proved to be a generally popular President. His activities after his term in office, like narrating a Netflix nature documentary, his friendship with Bruce Springsteen, and his commitment to human rights causes worldwide, are logical reasons for a follower account that exceeds 133 million.
Elon Musk's 133 million followers also make sense, ownership of the entire platform notwithstanding. To some, he's a meme-posting Tony Stark-like figure who is paving the way for space travel, electric car ownership, and a more unrestrained online platform. To his many detractors, Musk is a very misguided individual who loves to pick online fights and make lofty claims about his companies. Fans want to learn from him and see what he has to say; detractors wish to watch the train wreck. Either way, the follower account is going to rise.