Bill Gates opens a Twitter account

The world’s richest man and the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, has finally entered the world of social media by opening an account on Twitter. He has also set up a Facebook fan page.

Bill Gates’ first tweet was “Hello world. Hard at work on my foundation letter -publishing on 1/25”. He was talking about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest non-profit foundations. This was followed by message to Ryan Seacrest, the famous American TV and radio host, thanking him for his work to raise money for people suffering in Haiti. He has also added pictures which include his trip to Africa and India.

Bill Gates is followed by 40 accounts on Twitter, including:

• The Economist
• Queen Rania of Jordan
• Barack Obama
• The New York Times
• Ashley Tisdale.

In his first six hours of using the social networking site, Gates gained more than 70,000 followers. You can find him @billgates on Twitter.

Bill Gates now has more than 170,000 followers and the count is going up every minute. Some have said that the popularity of Gates’ new account was what caused Twitter to go down for some time.