Twitter chief Elon Musk has become the most followed account on the microblogging site, as per the Guinness World Records, leaving behind former US President Barack Obama who held the record since 2020.
With 133 million followers, the 51-year-old business tycoon has garnered the most number of followers five months after purchasing the platform for $44 billion.
As per the report, the social media platform has approximately 450 million monthly active users, which means that around 30 per cent of the followers follow Musk.
Musk completed the purchase of Twitter on October 27, 2022 at which time he had 110 million followers, making him the platform’s third-most followed person, behind Justin Bieber and Obama.
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Since then, he has gained more than 23 million followers whereas Bieber and Obama have actually lost followers due to Musk fans unfollowing them, the report stated.
According to stats tracker Social Blade, Obama has lost 267,585 followers and Bieber has lost 118,950, over the last 30 days.
By comparison, Musk has gained over 3 million, averaging over 100,000 new followers per day, the report added.
On Monday, the Twitter chief announced that starting April 15, only verified accounts will show up in Twitter’s "For You" recommendations.
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He called it the “only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over". It is otherwise a “hopeless losing battle", he said. You need to have a verified account to vote in polls “for the same reason", he added.
"That said, it’s ok to have verified bot accounts if they follow terms of service & don’t impersonate a human," he further stated.
This decision came after Musk revealed last week that all users with "legacy" verification would lose their badges in the following month. As a result, only those who subscribe to Twitter Blue for $8 per month will be able to maintain their blue checks.