Just before Donald Trump took the oath of office Friday afternoon, another peaceful transfer of power was happening, as Trump’s Administration quietly took over the official @POTUS Twitter handle alongside the rest of the White House’s social media accounts.
At exactly noon EST, @POTUS went from a photo of Barack Obama to a photo of Donald Trump. Names and biographies were also immediately changed.
Left-leaning outfits like Gizmodo were quick to point out that he background image is not of Donald Trump’s inauguration, but a Getty image from Barack Obama’s.
The @FLOTUS Twitter handle now belongs to Melania Trump, though there is some speculation that she will share some of the First Lady duties with Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
The rest of the White House’s Twitter accounts, @WhiteHouse, @POTUS, @VP, @FLOTUS, @PressSec, @LaCasaBlanca, @WHLive, @VPLive, and @Cabinet, have also transferred over to Trump’s new team, and all of the previous Tweets, from Obama’s Administration, have been deleted.
Trump’s team will also now be responsible for the White House’s Instagram (though the handle still reads “Obama White House”), its Facebook pages (both English language and Spanish language), its Snapchat, YouTube and even its Medium.com account, which Obama’s team frequently used to explain their policies to younger, Internet audience.
Despite the smooth transfer of power of the @POTUS account, President Trump is not expected to use the coveted handle. Rather the newly minted President is already continuing to use his familiar handle of @realdonaldtrump which, for what it’s worth, has more than 20 million followers compared to fewer than 4 million for the @POTUS account.
