Hundreds of thousands of Twitter accounts were opened, while hundreds of thousands of others closed, in the hours after the announcement that budding oligarch Elon Musk had come to an agreement to buy the social media platform, NBC News reports.
Analysis of the accounts noted that they were nearly all “organic” accounts–those associated with a specific person, not a business or a “bot”–who either left or joined. More of the story came in by looking at who lost or gained followers: Marjorie Taylor Greene gained about 100,000 new followers, a 20% increase since the announcement. Pop singer Katy Perry lost 200,000 of her 109 million followers, or 0.2%.
The pattern seemed to be that the new accounts were attracted to conservative personalities and outlets, while people who are typically apolitical (or nonpolitical on Twitter) are leaving the platform before Musk’s takeover.