Obama breaks Guinness record with new Twitter account

US President Barack Obama broke a Guinness record  by becoming the fastest person to garner one million followers on Twitter, a  feat he accomplished in less than five hours with his new account @POTUS, Efe news agency reported.

 

Guinness World Records, which verifies and keeps an official list of world  records, said on Tuesday on its website that the president has set the new  record on the social network the day before.

In obtaining a million followers in less than five hours, Obama broke the  record previously set by actor Robert Downey Jr., who got to the one-million  mark in 23 hours and 22 minutes in April 2014.

The president already has another Twitter account, @BarackObama, which is  handled by the team that directed his second presidential campaign, Organizing  for America, and the messages he has written there so far have been marked with  the initials "bo" to differentiate them from tweets created by other  presidential staffers.

"Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving  me my own account," wrote Obama in his first tweet, apparently sent from the  Oval Office.The president's self-description on his Twitter profile reads: "Dad,  husband, and 44th President of the United States."

The White House quickly announced that this was truly a new presidential  Twitter account.

White House assistant director for Internet strategy, Alex Wall, said via  Twitter that the president's new account will be transferred to whoever wins the  presidential election in 2016, adding that it represents a new way for Obama to  communicate directly with the US people via tweets that come exclusively from  him.

That question about ownership of the account had come from former president  Bill Clinton, whose wife Hillary is running for president.

"Welcome to @Twitter, @POTUS! One question: Does that username stay with  the office? #askingforafriend," Clinton had tweeted.

And Obama replied, "Good question, @billclinton. The handle comes with the  house. Know anyone interested in @FLOTUS?" - the latter designation a reference  to the abbreviation for "First Lady of the US."

Already following Obama on Twitter are many government officials, the  universities at which he studied -- Columbia and Harvard -- and former  presidents such as Clinton and George H.W. Bush, but, for the moment, it is  reported that Hillary Clinton has not joined that crowd.