Twitter is a digital megaphone for politicians and government officials.
Angela Lang/CNET
When Joe Biden gets sworn in on Wednesday as the 46th US president, his team will get the digital keys to several White House Twitter accounts. They’re important because politicians and government officials use them to reach millions of Americans with the click of a button.
The transfer of the official presidential Twitter accounts first happened in 2017 when Barack Obama — the first president to use Twitter — departed and Donald Trump took office. The @WhiteHouse Twitter account has 26 million followers and @POTUS has more than 33 million followers.
Unlike 2017, though, Biden won’t automatically inherit the followers from the prior administration, a change his team wasn’t happy about. Earlier this month, Biden’s team launched a new Twitter account, @PresElectBiden, which has more than 940,300 followers. At 12:01 p.m. ET on Wednesday, that account is scheduled to become @POTUS.
Here’s what you need to know about the social media transfer of power:
What happens to the current White House accounts used by the Trump administration?
You’ll still be able to see old tweets posted by the Trump administration, but theyll be archived online. The usernames of these accounts will also change so people know the handover happened, according to a blog post from Twitter. When Obama left office in 2017, for example, @POTUS became @POTUS44 and you can still view tweets from that account. The same process will happen to the Trump administration, whose tweets will be publicly archived under the name @POTUS45. Trump also had a personal Twitter account he preferred to use, but that was pulled down by the company for violating its rules against glorifying violence in the wake of the deadly riot at the US Capitol.
How will Twitter transfer the presidential accounts to Biden’s team?
Biden’s transition team is already using Twitter, but its accounts have different names right now. Those usernames will change during Inauguration Day on Jan. 20 when Biden officially takes over the White House. “@Transition46 will become @WhiteHouse, @PresElectBiden will become @POTUS, @SenKamalaHarris will become @VP, @FLOTUSBiden will become @FLOTUS, and @PressSecPsaki will become @PressSec,” Twitter said. The social media company is also creating a new account, @SecondGentleman, for Douglas Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris, the first woman ever to be elected US vice president.
Will these new White House accounts automatically retain followers from the prior administration?
No. Twitter users who followed these White House accounts or the accounts used by Biden’s transition team will be notified about the transfer and given the option to follow the accounts used by the new administration. So be on the lookout for an alert within the Twitter app or other prompts. During the inauguration, Twitter will also list these accounts in an online hub for US elections so you can find them there as well.
Why isn’t Twitter automatically transferring followers of the White House accounts to Biden?
Twitter didn’t give a reason in its blog post. The Wall Street Journal noted in December that some users complained about the transfer process during the 2017 handover of White House accounts, which was marred by some technical problems. Biden’s team, though, wasn’t happy with Twitter’s decision because it could limit the number of people the new president will be able to reach. Rob Flaherty, the digital director for Biden’s presidential campaign, said in a tweet in late December that Biden’s team pushed back against the idea but was “told this was unequivocal.”
