US President-elect Joe Biden will be set up with a new twitter account with zero followers. This differs from the past transition where the official @POTUS account was transferred to Donald Trump with all 13 million followers intact.
The account has been set up with the username @PresElectBiden and has already garnered 500,000 followers. Biden has already tweeted using the account, notifying users of the account and the plans to transition it into @POTUS account effective January 20, 2021.
“Folks — This will be the account for my official duties as President. At 12:01 PM on January 20th, it will become @POTUS. Until then, I’ll be using @JoeBiden. And while you’re here, follow @FLOTUSBiden
@SenKamalaHarris, @SecondGentleman and @Transition46.” Biden’s first tweet on the account read.
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Folks — This will be the account for my official duties as President. At 12:01 PM on January 20th, it will become @POTUS. Until then, I'll be using @JoeBiden. And while you're here, follow @FLOTUSBiden @SenKamalaHarris @SecondGentleman and @Transition46.
— President Biden Archived (@POTUS46Archive) January 15, 2021
Donald Trump inherited the @POTUS account from Mr. Obama with all its followers. Obama’s tweets were then archived in a different account @POTUS44 where they can be read to date.
Twitter said Trump’s tweets under the @POTUS account will be archived the same way, under the account @POTUS45. Trump however mostly used his personal @realDonaldTrump account during his presidency. Twitter has not said anything regarding the account which was permanently suspended on the first week of January 2021.
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Twitter has not offered an explanation as to why they decided to start of President-Elect Joe Biden on a new account. Instead, they put out an official blog post laying out the transition plans.
“These institutional accounts will not automatically retain the followers from the prior administration,” the post said.
The blog post also said that people who previously followed the @POTUS account will receive notifications to follow the @PresElectBiden account.
Biden’s team has also registered new accounts for @FLOTUSBiden for the future first lady, Jill Biden, and a brand new official account, @SecondGentleman, for Ms Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff.
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