After Musk-Twitter deal, some Republicans gain followers, while some Democrats see losses

After Musk-Twitter deal, some Republicans gain followers, while some Democrats see losses

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Since billionaire Elon Musk reached an agreement to buy Twitter on Monday, many prominent Republicans have seen spikes in their follower counts while Democrats have shed a substantial number of theirs.


What You Need To Know

  • Since billionaire Elon Musk reached an agreement to buy Twitter on Monday, many prominent Republicans have seen spikes in their follower counts while Democrats have shed a substantial number of theirs
  • For instance, former first son Donald Trump Jr. and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have each added around 250,000 new followers since just before Twitter and Musk announced their deal
  • President Joe Biden’s personal account has lost nearly 66,000 followers, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has around 38,000 fewer followers
  • Twitter said in a statement that “fluctuations appear to largely have been a result of an increase in new account creation and deactivation”

For instance, former first son Donald Trump Jr. and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have each added around 250,000 new followers since just before Twitter and Musk announced their deal. Fox News host Tucker Carlson has around 160,000 new followers, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Fla., has 137,000 more, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has about 130,000 more. 

Meanwhile, some Democrats have seen their Twitter audiences shrink. 

President Joe Biden’s personal account has lost nearly 66,000 followers. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has around 38,000 fewer followers. The follower counts for Vice President Kamala Harris (nearly 25,000 fewer), Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats (about 20,000 fewer), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. (around 18,000 fewer) also have taken hits.

A USA Today analysis found that 72% of the official congressional accounts for 529 Republican lawmakers gained followers from Monday morning to Tuesday morning, while 268 of 270 Democratic House and Senate members lost followers.

The biggest overnight winner was Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who added 63,735 followers in 24 hours. To compare, he also saw the biggest follower increase of any member of Congress from April 19 to April 20 — just 3,506. 

Sanders saw the biggest drop in followers from Monday to Tuesday — 21,640.

Twitter said in a statement to media outlets Tuesday that “we’ve been looking into recent fluctuations in follower counts.”

“While we continue to take action on accounts that violate our spam policy which can affect follower counts, these fluctuations appear to largely have been a result of an increase in new account creation and deactivation,” the company said. “We’ll continue looking into these follower count fluctuations.”

Twitter announced Monday that it reached an agreement for Musk to acquire the company for about $44 billion.

The purchase has been applauded by Republicans who believe Twitter has unevenly biased conservative voices. Musk, meanwhile, has said he plans to loosen the platform’s content moderation policy by protecting legal free speech in what he calls “the digital town square.” 

“By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law,” Musk tweeted Tuesday. “I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”

DeSantis tweeted Monday that Musk’s “offer to buy Twitter is a good deal for shareholders and raises the prospect that the platform will be a place where free speech can thrive, not a tool for narrative enforcement.”

Greene, whose personal Twitter account was permanently banned in January for repeatedly sharing COVID-19 misinformation, wrote from her official account Monday: “My personal freedom of speech was violated on this platform along with an unknown number of Americans, and I want my personal account back. I want everyone else to have theirs back too, if they choose it.”

Greene promptly began sharing some of the same claims that led up to her account being suspended.

Gaetz, meanwhile, observed Tuesday: “It really is something how conservative accounts are getting massive follower increases today.”

Warren, however, on Monday called the Musk-Twitter deal “dangerous.”

“One billionaire — whose estimated net worth has gotten about 10 times larger since the start of the pandemic — is about to have the power to decide how millions of people can communicate with each other,” she tweeted. “It’s dangerous for our democracy to have so much power in so few hands.”

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