Just months after buying the platform, Elon Musk is officially the biggest account on Twitter, leapfrogging former president Barack Obama to reach 133 million followers
Noam Galai/Getty Images for Heidi Klum
- Elon Musk overtook Barack Obama on Thursday to become Twitter's most followed account.
- Five months after buying the social-media platform, Musk has over 133 million followers.
- The Twitter CEO posted 72 times on Monday, and has his tweets boosted by engineers, per Platformer.
Elon Musk became Twitter's most-followed account on Thursday, overtaking Barack Obama's 133 million followers by about 40,000 at the time of writing.
It comes five months after Musk bought the social-media company for $44 billion, beginning a reign full of controversial changes.
Musk's ascent to Twitter's follower peak comes two days before Twitter removes the blue checkmarks for "legacy verified" accounts — those who were given the symbol to distinguish them from impersonators, as opposed to users who subscribe to Musk's flagship Twitter Blue service.
According to the follower-tracking site SocialBlade, Musk saw the biggest increase last April – the month he first offered to buy Twitter – gaining 9.7 million followers. The month after taking over the company, his follower count rose by 6.9 million.
The Twitter CEO became the sixth-user to cross the 100 million mark last June, according to The Verge, which first reported the news.
While Obama only tweeted 24 times in the last month per SocialBlade, the Twitter CEO's daily average is 26 – including 72 tweets on Monday.
In February, Musk fired one Twitter engineer who suggested his tweets might be getting less traction because of declining public interest in him, per Platformer.
The tech newsletter also reported that Musk asked engineers to find new ways to promote his tweets after President Joe Biden's post about the Super Bowl received more likes than the Twitter CEO's. Musk blamed a "disgruntled employee" for leaking the information, and said it was actually caused by a glitch.
But the Twitter CEO is also among 35 VIP users – a list also including LeBron James, Ben Shapiro, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – whose views are being secretly boosted, Platformer reported this week.
Twitter Blue is due to shake things up on the platform again from April 15, when only paying subscribers will be able to vote in polls or appear in users' "For You" feeds.
Insider contacted Twitter for comment. The company responded with an automated message that didn't address the inquiry.