President-elect Joe Biden's new Twitter account was approaching one million followers on Monday ahead of his inauguration this week.
Since its creation last Thursday, the handle @PresElectBiden has attracted more than 922,000 followers at the time of writing. The following surged by 425,740 on January 15 and 396,316 on January 16, according to U.S. analytics firm Social Blade.
Biden's personal account currently has more than 24 million followers and continues to pick up tens of thousands of new accounts daily, Factba.se data suggests.
Twitter confirmed in a blog post last week that it will transfer ownership of institutional White House Twitter accounts to the new administration as President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are both sworn into office on January 20.
On Wednesday, as Donald Trump's term comes to an end, the @PresElectBiden handle will become @POTUS, while @SenKamalaHarris will become @VP.
But in a break from the last handover, Twitter said accounts will not automatically retain the masses of followers picked up by the outgoing administration.
It marked a significant change from January 2017, when Donald Trump's team inherited millions of followers from President Obama's years in office. As noted by CNBC, it was the first ever Twitter transition, as the profiles were made in the Obama-era.
Instead, Twitter said people who previously followed institutional White House accounts, or relevant Biden or Harris profiles, will this week be sent in-app alerts or prompts that will give them the option of following the fresh administration's new accounts.
The @POTUS Twitter account currently has more than 33 million followers, while the @WhiteHouse profile has roughly 26 million. In the prior presidential transition, Trump had reportedly gained about 12 million followers of the @POTUS account alone.
Rob Flaherty, who is set to serve as the Biden administration's digital strategy director, told Bloomberg the situation may leave social staffers at a disadvantage.
"If we don't end the day with the 12 million followers that Donald Trump inherited from Barack Obama, then they have given us less than they gave Donald Trump, and that is a failure," he said. He added in a Twitter thread that while the followers are likely to include "bots and trolls" they may also include people who don't often engage in politics.
"Anyway, the nice thing about Joe Biden is that he truly couldn't care less about Twitter followers. Or Twitter! But he does care about communicating with everyone in the country, whether they agree with him or not," Flaherty tweeted on January 15.
Anyway, the nice thing about Joe Biden is that he truly couldn't care less about Twitter followers. Or Twitter! But he does care about communicating with everyone in the country, whether they agree with him or not.
— Rob Flaherty (@Rob_Flaherty) January 15, 2021
Biden and Harris will be sworn in at the U.S. Capitol building. They will take their oaths of office before Biden gives an inaugural address, according to the schedule. Trump is expected to depart before then, traveling to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
President Trump's Twitter account was permanently suspended on January 8 due to the risk of "further incitement of violence" after a large mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 6, a violent siege that left five people dead.
