President Obama joins the 21st century with first tweet, President Clinton responds
President Barack Obama just sent out his first tweet this morning from his very own personal account. And it only took six years into this presidency for him to do so, proving that IT at the House White is totally on it.
Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account.
— President Obama (@POTUS) May 18, 2015
Prior to this, the POTUS was tweeting from The White House’s official twitter account, signing tweets with his initials. President Obama’s new handle was confirmed by both Twitter’s government account and The White House’s twitter account.
Welcome to Twitter @POTUS, the official @WhiteHouse account for Tweets from the President of the United States. https://t.co/eIWcwljSZY
— Twitter Government (@gov) May 18, 2015
President Obama.
In the Oval Office.
Tweeting.
#WelcomeToTwitter, @POTUS!
http://t.co/SzWXltjNK0 pic.twitter.com/ce4DurwYXj
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 18, 2015
Unfortunately President Obama will only have the @POTUS handle until the 2016 election, where it will then be handed off to the next office holder, and his tweets will be archived like all government records.
Until then Barry’s got a lot of tweeting to do until he catches up with his contemporaries such as wife FLOTUS (currently at 2,000 tweets), Hilary Clinton (390 tweets), "Uncle" Joe Biden (at 1,000 tweets), and George H.W. Bush (at 31 tweets). We can only assume that former president George W. Bush is too busy painting to worry about social media.
UPDATE: Oh, he's fast.
Welcome to @Twitter, @POTUS! One question: Does that username stay with the office? #askingforafriend
— Bill Clinton (@billclinton) May 18, 2015