Rupert Murdoch (53,000 followers) 'fools around on Twitter . . . friends worry about what I might say'
Rupert Murdoch, the 80-year-old chairman and CEO of News Corporation has joined Twitter, complete with punctuation mistakes. By early Monday he had amassed more than 53,000 followers.
Find him @rupertmurdoch
On Sunday evening, In reply to a tweet from Google's Larry Page who welcomed hin to Twitter and asked "Could Google+ be next?" Murdoch replied:
" Maybe soon, but I'm getting killed for fooling around here and friends frightened what I may really say!"
News Corp executive chairman Jack Dorsey said Murdoch had set up a verified account and would be giving his unique observations. "With his own voice, in his own way, @RupertMurdoch is now on Twitter," wrote Dorsey.
Within hours of takeoff, Murdoch had more than 14,000 followers and was commenting on everything from the US presidential election to his family holiday in the Caribbean. He also had a good word for Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister.
By 11 am US time on Monday Rupert had 53,153 followers. But he was following just four people himself : Jack Dorsey, executive chairman of Twitter, Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus, Google co-founder Larry Page and Lord Sugar.
Lord Sugar wondered ina tweet, "I wonder is my old pal @rupertmurdoch is eying up Twitter to buy or invest in it. He missed out on Facebook and My Space.. not a great deal."
Rupert Murdoch said in his tweets earlier he considered the Steve Jobs biography to be "interesting but unfair". "Family must hate," he said. He thought George Clooney deserved an Oscar for his performance in The Descendants ( distributor by News Corp'sFox Searchlight Pictures). And he praised another Fox pic: We Bought a Zoo.
On New Year's Eve he posted: "Huge NY eve do. Oligarchs and silicon valley biggies(like Jack) . May. Learn something".
Piers Morgan, ex-editor of the News of the World, wrote: "Now this is going to be fascinating … welcome to Twitter my old boss @RupertMurdoch."
Former deputy prime minister John Prescott made a joking reference to the phone-hacking scandal . "Welcome to Twitter … @rupertmurdoch," he wrote. "I've left you a Happy New Year message on my voicemail!" Prescott had a few other digs as well.
A blue and white tick appears next to the Murdoch account – the sign Twitter uses to show that an account has been "verified" as belonging to the right person