GOP spikes in Twitter followers after Elon Musk seals $44 billion dollar deal

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – After Elon Musk sealed the $44 billion dollar deal to buy Twitter on Monday, users on the platform have been seeing swings in their follower counts.

A flood of prominent users with the little blue checkmark have come forward, claiming they lost thousands of followers overnight.

However a number of conservative and right-wing accounts like Ted Cruz and Laura Ingraham actually gained followers.

Donald Trump Jr. first noticed an increase of 87,296 followers by Tuesday and another 119,022 by Wednesday morning.

He responded by saying, “While I’m awesome and totally deserving of 87,000 new followers a day it seems that someone took the shackles off my account.”

Marjorie Taylor Green, Georgia Congressman whose personal Twitter account was suspended saw her official government Twitter account gain over 41,000 new followers on Wednesday night.

Twitter along with other apps have been notorious through this censoring algorithm called “shadow banning”.

Most believe that Musk’s takeover will expose this algorithm and how it being used to politically censor.

On Good Evening San Diego, KUSI’s Ginger Jeffries talked with Kevin Paffrath, Social Media & Financial Analyst, about sudden influx of conservative followers.