Musk outpaces Obama in terms of followers

Many months after acquiring Twitter in a multibillion dollar deal, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla has climbed to the top position.

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Twitter, dethroned former US president Barack Obama as the social media platform’s most popular user on Thursday after reaching a follower count of over 133.08 million.

Musk’s tally puts him just ahead of Obama, who had about 133.04 million Twitter followers as of Thursday. The third-placed Justin Bieber, who has 113.4 million followers, is comfortably behind the top two. The top 10 also includes football player Cristiano Ronaldo, Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Taylor Swift in addition to other performers.

In June of last year, months after initially raising the possibility of buying the firm in April 2022, Musk passed the 100 million mark for the first time.

With 87.3 million followers, Donald Trump is presently in ninth place on the list, around 26 million followers behind both Musk and Obama. Since being banned from Twitter in the days following the January 6, 2021 rioting at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, Trump hasn’t posted anything on the social media network since that time.

He was allowed back onto Twitter in November when Musk took control of the social media firm, but he hasn’t sent out a single tweet, instead choosing to share his ideas on his Truth Social platform.

With his $44 billion purchase of the firm in October, Musk has risen to become the user with the most followers on Twitter. Under his direction, the platform has made a number of adjustments to the social network in an effort to increase income, including the addition of paid verification and significant reductions in its worldwide staff. Similar layoffs have recently occurred at a number of other Big Tech businesses.

Last week, Twitter revealed that its “legacy verification service” will stop on April 1. Given that they met specific requirements, certain well-known accounts, including those of journalists and politicians, received a free blue check mark from the site’s former owner to help users identify them from fake or satirical ones. As of Saturday, users must pay at least $8 per month to maintain their verified status.