• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent

2

Social Security unraveling: 7,100 workers sacked, performance metrics retired, disability claims falling

3

'Where we are today is frightening': a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt

1

Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent

2

Social Security unraveling: 7,100 workers sacked, performance metrics retired, disability claims falling

3

'Where we are today is frightening': a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt
TechDonald Trump

Who Does Donald Trump Follow on Twitter and Why Does it Matter?

Michal Lev-Ram
By
Michal Lev-Ram
Michal Lev-Ram
Special Correspondent
Down Arrow Button Icon
Michal Lev-Ram
By
Michal Lev-Ram
Michal Lev-Ram
Special Correspondent
Down Arrow Button Icon
January 19, 2017, 4:46 PM ET
Barack Obama, Donald Trump
FILE - In this Nov. 10, 2016, file photo, President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. An apparent rapport is brewing between Obama and Trump that few, if any, saw coming. A few months ago they were trading insults. Today it’s telephone calls and pleasantries. Apparently membership in one of the world’s most exclusive clubs _ the club of U.S. presidents _ has a way of changing things. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)Photograph by Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP

You are who you follow on Twitter.

Maybe, maybe not. But the list of people, brands, and organizations you choose to track on the social media service does say something about your character, interests, and opinions—perhaps even more so than the list of your own followers because those are not self-selected.

For instance, I am a journalist and, naturally, I follow lots of other writers as well as media organizations like Esquire, Fox Business, and Reuters. (I also follow Neil Young, a tweeting chicken, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, and actress Mindy Kaling, so I’m not sure what the full list says about me.) On the other hand, I have several thousand followers, some of whom I know and interact with but most of whom I have never crossed paths with and never will. (For some reason, I seem to have accrued quite a few followers who use cat pictures or close-ups of cleavage for their profile photos.) In other words, the list of people I follow versus the list of people who follow me probably says more about what I do and who I am—or, at the very least, how I want to be perceived.

But enough about my Twitter account. What does this same list say about the character of our presidents, both incoming and outgoing?

Lots of attention has been given to President-elect Donald Trump’s Twitter feed in particular, but most of it has focused on his tweets and to some extent, his followers—not who he follows. The social media tool has provided our soon-to-be-president with a digital megaphone for his prodigious rants against companies and opponents. A recent poll showed that a large majority of Americans want the President-elect to delete his Twitter account. Those people are out of luck: The businessman-turned-politician has said he will keep his current Twitter profile, even after he is sworn into office on Friday. On top of that, he will inherit the handle @POTUS, set up by President Barack Obama’s administration in 2009. Exactly how President-elect Trump plans to use the @POTUS account remains to be seen—his transition team did not respond to an inquiry from Fortune. That said, it’s safe to assume that between those two accounts, we will have at least four years of lots and lots of tweeting from our new president. And for that, you can thank President Obama, the so-called “first social media president,” who paved the way to acceptance of digital and social tools in the White House.

President Obama has also been a prodigious tweeter, though his use of the platform has tended to take a different tone from President-elect Trump. The list of people he follows on the service is also quite different from the incoming commander-in-chief.

Trump follows 42 accounts on Twitter, 17 of which have the name “Trump” in them, from his daughter Ivanka Trump to Trump Golf to Official Team Trump. (Yes, there are a lot of Trump-related Twitter accounts.) Of the rest, several belong to members of his transition team and incoming administration, as well as a handful of media organizations and personalities like the Drudge Report, Sean Hannity of Fox News, and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough.

Obama, meanwhile, follows 72 accounts through his @POTUS handle—at least until Friday’s handoff. These include many members of his administration and more than 20 government agencies like the Labor Department, Homeland Security, and the Agriculture Department. Other than First Lady Michelle Obama’s @FLOTUS account, Obama doesn’t follow anyone else with his own family name. He does, however, follow all three of his alma maters: Occidental, Columbia and Harvard. He also follows two former presidents and pretty much every Chicago-based professional sports team under the sun: the Cubs, Bulls, Bears, White Sox, and Blackhawks.

It’s unlikely that President Obama was the only one to decide who he should follow on Twitter. More probable is that a team of people advised him. Given President-elect Trump’s statements about how he runs his account, it’s likely he had a more single-handed approach to his list.

For more about the presidential inauguration, watch:

That said, it’s unlikely either man is sitting around and actually spending much time reading what the people and organizations they follow on Twitter are saying (though Trump does seem to spend a lot of time interacting with his followers on the site). But again, the lists of who they follow are still indicative of something, even if that something is just the perception of themselves they and their teams want to create.

So what happens starting Friday, when President-elect Trump is sworn in? It will be an unprecedented handover in many ways—yes, partly because it will be the first official handoff of a Twitter account, from one president to another. Whether or not he uses the new account, Trump will inherit @POTUS’s 13.7 million followers, and presumably will also inherit the list of accounts followed by @POTUS until now. Maybe that list will change over time and will better reflect our new president. Or maybe he will decide to follow more people and organizations via his personal Twitter account, now that his job description is going through a massive change. One thing is clear: I will keep following both men. And the tweeting chicken.

About the Author
Michal Lev-Ram
By Michal Lev-RamSpecial Correspondent
Twitter icon

Michal Lev-Ram is a special correspondent covering the technology and entertainment sectors for Fortune, writing analysis and longform reporting.

See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

Who is Chris Olah? The atheist Anthropic cofounder the Pope chose to sit beside him at the Vatican and tell the tech industry it can’t govern itself
AITech
Who is Chris Olah? The atheist Anthropic cofounder the Pope chose to sit beside him at the Vatican and tell the tech industry it can’t govern itself
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJune 3, 2026
23 minutes ago
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.
Magazine250 Years of Innovation
Intel’s new CEO cut management layers in half. The stock is up nearly 500%
By Jeff John RobertsJune 3, 2026
2 hours ago
Apoha cofounders Anshika Srivastava (left) and Shamit Shrivastava.
AIVenture Capital
Exclusive: Apoha, a startup building AI models for creating new materials, emerges from stealth with $36 million Series A funding round
By Jeremy KahnJune 3, 2026
2 hours ago
Microsoft seeks to be AI’s center of gravity again. CEO Satya Nadella is in San Francisco to make the case
AIMicrosoft
Microsoft seeks to be AI’s center of gravity again. CEO Satya Nadella is in San Francisco to make the case
By Sebastian HerreraJune 2, 2026
10 hours ago
coo
ConferencesCOO Summit
The $18 expense report and the defunded intern programs: symbols of corporate America’s dysfunction
By Nick LichtenbergJune 2, 2026
12 hours ago
Image of $1 bills.
NewslettersEye on AI
AI may already be adding hundreds of billions to the economy—without showing up in the data
By Beatrice NolanJune 2, 2026
14 hours ago

Most Popular

Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent
Environment
Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJune 1, 2026
2 days ago
Social Security unraveling: 7,100 workers sacked, performance metrics retired, disability claims falling
North America
Social Security unraveling: 7,100 workers sacked, performance metrics retired, disability claims falling
By Katie Savin, Callie Freitag, Matthew Borus and The ConversationJune 2, 2026
20 hours ago
'Where we are today is frightening': a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt
Banking
'Where we are today is frightening': a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt
By Nick LichtenbergJune 2, 2026
23 hours ago
The Iran conflict has disrupted oil supply. Gulf states are now looking to multi-billion-dollar investments in renewables 
Energy
The Iran conflict has disrupted oil supply. Gulf states are now looking to multi-billion-dollar investments in renewables 
By Melissa HancockJune 1, 2026
2 days ago
Cognizant CEO is swimming against the tide on AI: he's hiring over 20,000 graduates this year and says AI tokenmaxxing is a 'vanity metric'
Conferences
Cognizant CEO is swimming against the tide on AI: he's hiring over 20,000 graduates this year and says AI tokenmaxxing is a 'vanity metric'
By Preston ForeJune 1, 2026
1 day ago
Trump tells Netanyahu, 'You're f—ing crazy' and Wall Street sees it as a sign he’s losing patience with the war and wants it done
Investing
Trump tells Netanyahu, 'You're f—ing crazy' and Wall Street sees it as a sign he’s losing patience with the war and wants it done
By Jim EdwardsJune 2, 2026
23 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.