Elon Musk becomes most followed Twitter user, overtakes Barack Obama, Justin Bieber

According to Guinness World Records, Twitter has approximately 450 million monthly active users. With over 133 million users following Elon Musk, the CEO has around 30% total Twiter users following him.

Elon Musk took charge of Twitter on October 27, 2022. He then had about 110 million users. Within five months, the number has increased to 133 million. He was the third most followed Twitter user after Barack Obama and Justin Bieber.

According to stats tracker Social Blade, Obama has lost 267,585 followers and Bieber has lost 118,950 over the last 30 days. While Musk has gained over 3 million, averaging over 100,000 new followers per day.

After buying Twitter, he sacked then Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal with other Twitter staff. In an open letter, Elon Musk shared the reason behind him taking charge of Twitter. “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” he said.

The CEO since then has introduced various changes to Twitter. In the latest, the platform will start removing the legacy verified marks from non-Twitter Blue user accounts from April 1. The move comes as the company works toward a model where only paid subscribers and members of approved organizations will have verified marks for their accounts.

Twitter accounts are now verified with three colours – Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not). All verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates.

The blue verification mark is now a feature of Twitter Blue subscription. In India, the subscription is available for a monthly fee of ₹650 on the web and ₹900 on mobile devices.