Suddenly after the Elon Musk buyout, conservatives have been doing particularly well on Twitter, while Democrat lawmakers have been losing followers.
The Daily Caller reported, that Republican Twitter accounts saw a massive surge in followers after reports Monday that Twitter was on the verge of selling itself to Elon Musk, while the accounts of Democratic lawmakers shrank considerably, according to an analysis Tuesday by USA Today. Twitter claimed the wild swings in follower counts are organic and simply the result of new accounts being created and existing accounts being deactivated.
The explanation makes sense, however, it seems unlikely that so many Democrat voters would be leaving the platform as a liberal billionaire purchases it.
“We’ve been looking into recent fluctuations in follower counts. While we continue to take action on accounts that violate our spam policy which can affect follower counts, these fluctuations appear to largely have been a result of an increase in new account creation and deactivation,” Twitter said in a statement.
The people who were running Twitter before the buyout, are the same people running it now. Elon has not yet had the ability to replace those in the company that he feels are acting irresponsibly. Though it’s also possible that employees may be working to save face before they’re fired.
When asked to provide data supporting their claim, they had no response.
The spike in right-wing follower base extends outside of America and includes even Brazilian right-wing politicians like President Jair Bolsonaro.
70% of Republican lawmakers on Twitter experienced a rise in interactions. On the other hand, 270 accounts belonging to Democrat politicians in America had reduced audiences. Donald Trump Jr. alone grew his account by 87,000 followers in just a few days.