It doesn’t seem a coincidence that @elonmusk has become the top account on Twitter just months after its owner took control of the platform.
Early on Monday, Musk surpassed Barack Obama as the most followed Twitter user – with 133.08 million followers compared to Obama’s 133.04 million.
It follows the Twitter CEO ordering company engineers to create a special system that boosts his tweets following the Super Bowl on February 12.
According to insiders, Musk ordered a revamp when his tweet about the Super Bowl didn’t get as many impressions as a similar tweet from President Joe Biden.
The billionaire deleted his ‘flopped’ tweet and threatened to fire his engineering team if they did not fix the engagement issue.
Musk’s follower count has been rising and now stands at 133,084,622, more than Obama’s 133,042,303
Twitter CEO Elon Musk reportedly deleted his tweet about the Super Bowl last month because it didn’t get as much engagement as a similar one from President Joe Biden
Musk’s tweet simply read ‘Go @Eagles!!!’ accompanied by US flag emoji – but Musk deleted it after it generated little more than 9.1 million impressions.
In comparison, Biden’s tweet – also expressing support for the Philadelphia Eagles who lost to Kansas City Chiefs – generated around 29 million impressions.
According to a report by Platformer, the incident capped off Musk’s increasing frustration over what he saw as decreasing engagement with his tweets.
He ordered staff to revamp Twitter’s algorithm – an issue internally described as ‘high urgency’ – so it would show users Musk’s tweets first.
Hours later, Twitter users started sharing screenshots of the ‘For You’ tab showing nothing but tweets and replies from the CEO.
The ‘For You’ tab shows popular tweets that are boosted by an algorithm– whether or not the person follows the account that posted them.
So it seems giving Musk’s tweets more prominence has had the effect of encouraging people to click on his account and the ‘follow’ button.
MailOnline contacted Twitter for comment in an email – but the company department is now just replying to any queries with a poo emoji.
Musk laid off Twitter’s global comms team shortly after his takeover.
After Twitter staff rushed to change the algorithm so it boosted Musk’s tweets, users started sharing screenshots showing nothing but tweets and replies from the CEO
Musk’s follower count has been rising since and at time of writing, he has 133,089,608 Twitter followers compared to Obama’s 133,042,468.
Interestingly, this means Obama’s follower count has declined in a matter of hours, while Musk’s is still increasing, stats published earlier by The Verge show.
Musk, who bought Twitter in October for $44 billion in October, has been ordering a slew of changes to the platform, both to the user experience and behind the scenes.
Earlier this week, he announced that users who do not pay for Twitter Blue – the version of the platform that costs £11/month for Android and iOS – will no longer be able to vote in polls.
He also said non-paying users will no longer have their tweets appear in the For You tab, further incentivizing people to shell out for Twitter Blue.
Musk said the changes will stop ‘AI bot swarms taking over’ the site, although he stopped short of explaining exactly how.
‘Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations,’ he tweeted.
‘[This] is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.
‘Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.’
Musk said the changes are ‘the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over’
If you want to be able to vote in polls on Twitter after April 15, you’ll have to subscribe to Twitter Blue, which starts from £9.60 per month
Jake Moore, tech expert and security advisor at ESET, challenged Musk’s suggestion that the decision is anything to do with removing Twitter bots.
‘This isn’t just a response to AI bots swarming the site, this is a response to the company haemorrhaging money,’ Moore told MailOnline.
‘Musk has obliterated the company and is now looking at removing features from unpaid accounts.’
Musk also recently removed SMS two-factor authentication (2FA) from the free version – a decision Moore called ‘absurd’ that will lead to ‘so many accounts hacked’.
2FA sends an SMS message containing a code to users’ smartphone, which they have to enter to access their account, as an extra layer of security.
One of the most controversial changes of all is the removal of the blue tick next to the names of account holders.
The blue tick was previously a free feature granted to ‘active, notable and authentic’ accounts of people such as politicians, celebrities and journalists.
But Musk now wants the meaning of the blue tick to be an indicator that the account ‘has an active subscription’ and is not a bot account.
In effect, all it does it indicate that an account holder is shelling out a monthly fee for the privilege.
It’s meant users were changing account names and photos to resemble an official account and paying to give it a blue tick to make it look authentic.
MailOnline contacted Twitter for comment in an email – but the company department is now just replying to any queries with a poo emoji. Musk laid off its comms team shortly after his takeover
‘Them thangs thangin’: New York Rudy Giuliani was impersonated on Twitter when Musk started messing around with the blue tick system
What’s more, members of the Taliban have been able to pay to have blue ticks next to their account names.
After months of delays, Twitter will finally remove blue ticks from accounts that aren’t paying starting from April 1, it confirmed last week.
Musk has rolled out new gold and grey ticks to indicate verified businesses and government bodies, respectively – and is charging £1,000 per month for them.
Within the company, meanwhile, Musk has laid off thousands of Twitter staff members to help curb outgoings and boost profits.
Most recently, Musk laid off another 200 employees at the end of February – and days later Twitter experienced a three-hour outage.
A few days later, Twitter encountered further technical trouble when users became unable to see photos or post links.
Outages have been increasing ever since Musk began running Twitter, leading to speculation that there aren’t enough staff to fix its problems.
This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk
