New Delhi, Nov 3 (IANS): New Twitter boss Elon Musk has gained more than 24.6 million followers after he first announced to acquire the platform in April for $44 billion.

Musk had around 89 million followers in April after the first Twitter deal announcement. However, as of Thursday, his follower count had reached 113.6 million, and growing at a phenomenal rate as he continues to tweet 24/7 since buying Twitter last week.

Barack Obama, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Rihanna and Cristiano Ronaldo currently top the list, with over 100 million followers each on the micro-blogging platform.

With 133.4 million followers, Obama leads the Twitter pack, followed by Bieber at 113.8 million and Musk at number three, and the Tesla CEO was set to become number 2 within no time.

Katy Perry has 108.8 million followers while Rihanna has 107 million followers on Twitter.

A report by Time said recently that Musk's follower count has been significantly boosted by fake accounts.

According to audience research tool SparkToro, Musk has nearly 7 per cent more fake followers than the median 41 per cent that accounts with similar sized followings have.

Musk, who changed his profile to 'Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator', wants to purge inactive accounts that have not posted anything for a period of over a year.

The tech billionaire has also announced that users could get their accounts verified with the new Blue plan at a price of $8 per month.