Obama Gets Own Twitter Handle After Six Years of Presidency

His Twitter handle @POTUS (President Of The United States) had within a few hours attracted over a million followers.

“Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account,” said his first tweet.

The @POTUS twitter account will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people with tweets coming exclusively from him. Obama is currently following 65 people, including Bill Clinton, George Bush and @FLOTUS, the First Lady’s account.

The existing @BarackObama Twitter handle which was started in 2007 has 59.2 million followers but is not however operated by President Obama but former campaign staff and is rarely used by the president.

Former Pope Benedict XVI attracted nearly 280,000 followers in his English Twitter account on its first day when he launched it in December 2012.