‘Burning the evidence before the new boss starts?’: Don Jnr and right wingers see giant leaps in their Twitter followers after Musk bid was accepted – as Obama and left wingers lose huge numbers amid speculation algorithm has been changed
Prominent right-wing tweeters have seen their follower counts shoot up since Elon Musk took over, sparking claims their accounts had been suppressed by woke Twitter staffers.
Meanwhile, leading left-wing figures including Barack Obama as well as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have seen huge slumps since news of Musk’s purchase.
Donald Trump Jr, who has 7.7 million followers, saw his followers surge by 87,296 on Tuesday and suggested the increase was due to an algorithm tweak targeting prominent conservative voices ahead of Musk’s arrival.
He tweeted: ‘While I’m awesome and totally deserving of 87,000 new followers a day it seems that someone took the shackles off my account. Wonder if they’re burning the evidence before new management comes in.’
Don Jr’s account had grown by between 5,000 and 10,000 tweets a day in recent weeks, with the spike in the wake of Musk’s announcement immediately obvious.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also saw a huge 141,566 people on Tuesday, according to SocialBlade statistics. That is a vast increase on the 5,000-or-so followers the popular GOP governor generally gains in the average day.
He praised Musk’s bid for Twitter, calling it ‘a good deal for shareholders’ and saying it ‘raises the prospect that the platform will be a place where free speech can thrive, not a tool for narrative enforcement.’
Conservative talk show host Dana Loesch, who’s long complained of account suppression, saw her followers surge by about 9,000 on Tuesday.
By comparison, she was gaining a few hundred new followers a day prior to Musk’s acquisition.
