Elon Musk overtakes Barack Obama as most followed Twitter account

Elon Musk has surpassed former US president Barack Obama as the most followed account on Twitter, five months after he bought the platform in a tumultuous takeover. The founder of Tesla and SpaceX on Thursday had 133,084,560 Twitter followers, a nose ahead of Obama, who had 133,041,813. The feat comes as the role of Twitter as a key platform for the exchange of news, ideas and PR messaging seems increasingly troubled.