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President Donald Trump claims @Potus handle from Barack Obama in Twitter power transfer

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By Rebecca Stewart, Trends Editor

January 20, 2017 | 3 min read

The @Potus Twitter handle has been handed over by Barack Obama to the freshly inaugurated president Donald Trump, marking the first Twitter transfer of power in US history.

PRESIDENT TRUMP TWITTER HANDLE POTUS

President Donald Trump claims @Potus from Barack Obama in Twitter transfer of power

The account, which currently has 13 million followers, has been used by Obama since 2015, however the Democrat has now been given the handle @Potus44 by Twitter. Previous tweets from his time in the White House have been archived by the social network, a special privilege that means all posts from the former president will be preserved, along with accompanying retweets and likes.

Anyone who followed @Potus will automatically be signed up to follow Obama's new account. The 44th president of the USA used his final message to thank the American people.

​Obama has embraced digital like no other leader before him, smashing Twitter records and teaming up with BuzzFeed for a special video designed to appeal to millennials.

Markedly, Trump has chosen to retain his own personal account @RealDonaldTrump alongside the official presidential profile. He told the Times last week that he wanted to retain the 46 million followers he currently has across social, 20.4 million of which belong to his Twitter fanbase.

In the lead up to the US election and in recent months, Twitter has been Trump's tool of choice for making official statements and posting general observations, but it remains to be seen if this candid approach to social will continue.

The former White House website will also be archived under ObamaWhiteHouse.gov. Other digital assets to be transferred between the Obama and Trump administrations include the official White House profiles on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Medium, Flickr and Tumblr.

Trump has yet to tweet from the @Potus handle. You can follow The Drum's live social media coverage of the US presidential inauguration here.

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