One of the richest and most well-known people in the world is now the most followed person on a leading social media platform. Here’s how Elon Musk conquered Twitter and is now the most followed person in the world.
What Happened: In 2022, Musk became the owner of social media platform Twitter with a $44 billion acquisition. Upon the acquisition, Musk became the CEO of Twitter adding the role to his double duties as CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla Inc TSLA.
As of Thursday, March 30, Musk is now the most followed person on Twitter, passing former president Barack Obama.
At the time of writing, Musk has 133,085,603 followers on Twitter. Obama ranks second with 133,041,362 followers.
One area where Obama beats Musk on Twitter is with the accounts he follows. The former president follows more than 500,000 people on Twitter. Musk is a bit more selective, following only 184 people on the social media platform.
Ranking behind Musk and Obama on Twitter is singer Justin Bieber who has 113.3 million followers. Musk passed Bieber for second place on the list in November 2022.
Behind the top three on the list are Katy Perry, Rihanna, Cristiano Ronaldo, Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga.
Trump was previously banned from Twitter, before being reinstated by Musk upon the acquisition. Trump has not tweeted on the platform since being unbanned, possibly related to his ownership of Truth Social, a company merging with Digital World Acquisition Corporation DWAC.
Current president Joe Biden has 37 million followers on his official account and 30 million for the @potus presidential account.
One platform where Musk won’t be topping anytime soon is Instagram, the photo sharing social media platform owned by Meta Platforms META.
Musk admitted in an interview to having a secret Instagram account after saying he got rid of his public Instagram.
“Instagram, man – it’s a thirst trap, you know,” Musk said.
Musk has also spoken out against social media platform Facebook, where he removed the profile pages of Tesla and SpaceX.
In the battle of social media platforms, Musk also said that “Instagram makes people depressed & Twitter makes people angry” and asked followers which of the two was better.
Ronaldo is the most followed person on Instagram with 563 million followers. Ranking behind Ronaldo are Lionel Messi, Selena Gomez, Kylie Jenner and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Bieber ranks 11th on Instagram with 282 million followers.
Related Link: 51 Facts And Figures About Elon Musk
The Rise of Musk on Twitter: A Twitter account was set up in June 2009 under the @elonmusk moniker. Musk claims it was previously used by someone that was not him.
“Please ignore prior tweets, as that was someone pretending to be me :) This is actually me,” Musk tweeted on June 4, 2010.
Musk has seen his Twitter following grow substantially over the last year. At the beginning of 2022, Musk had 72.1 million followers.
In April 2022, Musk had 81.6 million followers. In June 2022, Musk passed the 100 million following milestone.
A 2020 study found that the topics Musk liked to tweet about the most were Tesla, SpaceX and other companies he had a hand in founding or had investing in, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin BTC/USD and Dogecoin DOGE/USD, artificial intelligence, the future of mankind, and sustainability.
Musk’s rise on Twitter has helped the followings of the companies he leads, and sometimes serves as a way to communicate news to the public instead of using press releases. Musk often tweets major posts from Tesla and SpaceX, which are then seen by millions of people around the world.
Photo: Shutterstock
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