Top 21 Most Followed X Accounts In 2026 [Updated List]

X (formerly Twitter) is one of the most influential social media platforms in the world. 

With over 557 million monthly active users, X is the go-to platform for news, sports, and entertainment.

From world leaders like Trump and tech billionaires like Elon Musk to global celebrities and sports icons, X drives huge user engagement. In this post, we break down the top 21 most-followed X accounts globally.

21 Most Followed x Accounts In 2026 (Overview)

Rank	Name	Followers	Country	Notable For
1	Elon Musk	230.6M	USA	Businessman, Owner of X/Twitter
2	Barack Obama	118.8M	USA	U.S. President (2009–2017)
3	Donald Trump	108.4M	USA	U.S. President (Present)
4	Narendra Modi	105.8M	India	PM of India (Present)
5	Cristiano Ronaldo	105.1M	Portugal	Football player
6	Rihanna	96.1M	USA	Musician
7	Justin Bieber	89.8M	Canada	Musician
8	NASA	87.1M	USA	Space agency
9	Katy Perry	85M	USA	Musician
10	Taylor Swift	78.7M	USA	Musician
11	Lady Gaga	70.2M	USA	Musician and actress
12	Kim Kardashian	68.4M	USA	Entrepreneur & reality TV star
13	YouTube	68M	USA	Online Video Sharing Platform
14	Virat Kohli	65.8M	India	Cricket player
15	Ellen DeGeneres	62.7M	USA	Comedian and television host
16	Bill Gates	62.4M	USA	Businessman and philanthropist
17	CNN	60.8M	USA	News channel
18	X	60.1M	USA	Social media network
19	CNN Breaking News	59M	USA	News channel
20	Selena Gomez	58.1M	USA	Musician and actress
21	Neymar	58M	Brazil	Football player

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1. Elon Musk

• Username: @elonmusk
• Category: Business & Technology
• Country: USA
• Known For: CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and X (Twitter)

Elon Reeve Musk is the most followed person on X, with over 230 million followers. He acquired X (formerly Twitter) in October 2022 for $44 billion and became its chairman.

Elon is also the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $496 billion. He’s the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, founder of Neuralink, The Boring Company, and xAI.

Interesting Facts About Elon Musk:

• Elon Musk launched his first business at 12, selling a game he coded called Blastar to a magazine for $500.
• Elon Musk merged X.com with Confinity in 2000, creating PayPal in 2001. A year later, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion.

2. Barack Obama

• Username: @BarackObama
• Category: Politics / Public Service
• Country: USA
• Known For: First African American U.S. President, 44th President of the United States

Barack Hussein Obama is the second-most-followed person on X, with 118+ million followers. He’s also the most-followed X account among politicians, as he served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017.

He is also a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a bestselling author of three books, including Dreams from My Father, The Audacity of Hope, and A Promised Land.

Interesting Facts About Barack Obama:

• Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, making him the first U.S. president born outside the mainland, and he lived in Indonesia during his early childhood.
• Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his work to improve global diplomacy and cooperation.

3. Donald Trump

• Username: @realDonaldTrump
• Category: Politics / Public Service
• Country: USA
• Known For: 45th & 47th President of the United States, Billionaire real estate owner, and owner of hotels, casinos, and golf courses

Donald John Trump is the current president of the United States. He’s also one of the wealthiest politicians, owning The Trump Organization, which focuses on luxury real estate, including hotels, resorts, and residential towers.

He built a massive following through reality TV like The Apprentice, and he’s extremely active on X.

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Interesting Facts About Donald Trump:

• Trump loves golf and owns 18 golf courses worldwide.
• Donald Trump was sent to military school at age 13 for misbehaving in school.

4. Narendra Modi

• Username: @narendramodi
• Category: Politics / Public Service
• Country: India
• Known For: Prime Minister of India (since 2014 to now)​, Longest-serving Chief Minister of Gujarat (2001 to 2014)

Narendra Damodardas Modi is an Indian political leader and the Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi is the #1 most-followed X account from India.

He is one of India’s best-known and most influential leaders. Before becoming prime minister, he served as the Chief Minister of Gujarat for many years (2001 to 2014).

Interesting Facts About Narendra Modi:

• Narendra Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister to win three consecutive terms since 1984.
• As a child, Modi sold tea with his father at Vadnagar station in Gujarat and later ran a tea stall with his brother.

5. Cristiano Ronaldo

• Username: @Cristiano
• Category: Sports / Football
• Country: Portugal
• Known For: Record-breaking goal scorer (over 950 official goals), multiple Ballon d’Or wins, global football icon

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro is a famous football player from Portugal. He has over 1 billion total followers across all social media platforms.

Ronaldo plays for Al-Nassr and is also the captain of the Portugal national team. Ronaldo plays for Al-Nassr and is also the captain of the Portugal national team. 

Interesting Facts About Cristiano Ronaldo:

• Ronaldo has scored more goals than any other player in both club and international football history.
• Ronaldo has won five Ballon d’Or awards, given to the best footballer in the world.

6. Rihanna

• Username: @rihanna
• Category: Music / Business
• Country: USA
• Known For: Global pop icon, record-breaking hits, Fenty Beauty founder

Robyn Rihanna Fenty is a singer and actress who has sold 250+ million records worldwide and won many awards, including 9 Grammy Awards, 12 Billboard Music Awards, and 13 American Music Awards.

Rihanna has seven diamond-certified singles: Umbrella, Work, Needed Me, Stay, Diamonds, We Found Love, and Love the Way You Lie. Each song has crossed 10 million sales or streams in the U.S.

Interesting Facts About Rihanna:

• Rihanna won 9 Grammys, 13 AMAs, and was named the top pop artist of the 2010s by Billboard.
• Rihanna’s real name isn’t Rihanna, it’s Robyn Rihanna Fenty.

7. Justin Bieber

• Username: @justinbieber
• Category: Music
• Country: Canada
• Known For: “Baby” hitmaker, youngest with 8 US #1 albums, Grammy winner.

Justin Drew Bieber is a Canadian singer who rose to fame with his first hit song, Baby. To date, the song has over 3.5 billion views on YouTube alone. Justin is known for his pop and R&B songs. 

Over the years, he has released many successful albums and won several awards, including two Grammy Awards out of 23 nominations, one Latin Grammy Award, eight Juno Awards, two Brit Awards, 26 Billboard Music Awards, and more.

Interesting Facts About Justin Bieber:

• Bieber speaks fluent French.
• Bieber was discovered on YouTube by Scooter Braun when he was just 13. He’s also the youngest male to debut at #1 on Billboard Hot 100.

8. NASA

• Username: @NASA
• Category: Space technology 
• Country: USA
• Known For: Collecting crucial data for weather forecasting and understanding Earth’s climate.

NASA was created in 1958 by the 34th U.S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to lead the U.S. space program. Most of their satellites help predict the weather on Earth, track climate change, and monitor natural disasters such as tsunamis.

Interesting Facts About NASA:

• NASA’s Apollo 11 mission landed humans on the Moon in 1969, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first to walk on it.
• A ton of daily technologies, including memory foam, CMOS camera sensors (in phones), water filters, cordless tools, and smoke detectors, came from NASA.

9. Katy Perry

• Username: katyperry
• Category: Music
• Country: USA
• Known For: Soft pop hits and a cartoonish sense of style

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (popularly known as Katy Perry) is an American singer and songwriter, best known for her catchy pop songs.  She is one of the best-selling music artists with over 150 million records globally. 

She gained worldwide fame with chart-topping hits like Firework, Roar, and Dark Horse. Katy has released many successful albums and won several awards, including 5 American Music Awards, 14 People’s Choice Awards, and several MTV honors.

Interesting Facts About Katy Perry:

• Her real name is Katheryn Hudson. She changed her last name to Perry to avoid confusion with actress Kate Hudson.
• Katy Perry is the first woman, after Michael Jackson, with five No. 1 hits from one album, Teenage Dream.

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10. Taylor Swift

• Username: taylorswift13
• Category: Music
• Country: USA
• Known For: 4x Grammy Album of the Year winner, Eras Tour billionaire, re-recording master

Taylor Swift is an American singer-songwriter known for writing songs based on her personal life. She has many hit pop songs, including “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, “Shake It Off”, “Blank Space”, “Bad Blood”, and “Look What You Made Me Do”, that reached the US Billboard Hot 100.

She’s also the highest-grossing live music artist, the wealthiest female musician, and one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with an estimated net worth of over $1 billion. 

Interesting Facts About Taylor Swift:

• Taylor Swift writes most of her songs by herself, and she has solo credits on 67 tracks.
• She has won the most Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, including Fearless (2010), 1989 (2016), Folklore (2021), and Midnights (2024).

11. Lady Gaga

• Username: ladygaga
• Category: Music
• Country: USA
• Known For: Fashion and dance-pop music

Lady Gaga is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Lady Gaga made history in 2019 by becoming the first woman to win an Oscar (Academy Award), BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Grammy all in the same year.

She taught herself to play the piano at age 4, wrote her first song at 13, and was admitted to NYU early at 17.

Interesting Facts About Lady Gaga:

• Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Germanotta, and her stage name came from Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” song.
• She’s a multi-award winner, with Grammys, an Oscar, and Golden Globes.

12. Kim Kardashian

• Username: KimKardashian
• Category: Fashion
• Country: USA
• Known For: Influencing fashion, beauty, and pop culture worldwide.

Kim Kardashian is one of the most followed celebrities on social media, especially on X, with over 68 million followers. She became famous from reality TV, especially Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which ran for 20 seasons.

Interesting Facts About Kim Kardashian:

• Kim Kardashian has been married three times: first at 19 to producer Damon Thomas, then to Kris Humphries, and finally to Kanye West.
• Kim lost 16 pounds in weeks to wear Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dress at the 2022 Met Gala.

13. YouTube

• Username: YouTube
• Category: Video sharing, social media
• Country: USA
• Known For: Hosting billions of videos, including music, vlogs, tutorials, and live streams

YouTube is the second-biggest search engine after Google, with nearly 79 billion visits every year. It was created by PayPal ex-employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in February 2005. 

Later in 2006, YouTube was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion. Its current net worth is estimated at over $180–200 billion.

Curious which YouTube channels have the most subscribers in the world? Explore the top subscribed YouTubers and understand what kind of content attracts millions of views.

Interesting Facts About YouTube:

• YouTube has 100 million paid subscribers and is the second-most popular mobile video app worldwide.
• When it comes to YouTube app usage worldwide, the United Arab Emirates ranks first with 94.1% penetration. Israel follows closely at 93.2%, while the United Kingdom comes third with 90.4% reach.

14. Virat Kohli

• Username: @imVkohli
• Category: Sports / Cricket
• Country: India
• Known For: Most centuries in ODIs (53) and the second-most centuries in international cricket with 84 tons across all formats

Virat Kohli is an Indian cricketer who is considered one of the best batters in modern cricket. He is known as the “chase master” for his iconic innings, such as his 183 against Pakistan in the 2012 Asia Cup.

He also has scored the most centuries while chasing targets. He leads the list with 28 centuries, far ahead of Sachin Tendulkar (17) and Rohit Sharma (16).

Interesting Facts About Virat Kohli:

• Virat Kohli wears the number 18 to honor his father, who passed away on December 18, 2006.
• Kohli holds several records in the ODI format, including being the fastest batsman to reach 8,000, 9,000, 10,000, 11,000, 12,000, and 13,000 runs.

15. Ellen DeGeneres

• Username: @The Ellen Show
• Category: Comedian, TV host, Actress
• Country: USA
• Known For: Popular American comedian, actress, and television host

Ellen DeGeneres is known for hosting the popular talk show “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which ran from 2003 to 2022. 

She’s also the voice of Dory in Finding Nemo and Finding Dory and is only the second woman to host the Oscars on her own.

Interesting Facts About Ellen DeGeneres:

• In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian award in the USA.
• She was the first major TV star to come out as gay on a sitcom.

16. Bill Gates

• Username: @BillGates
• Category: Business / Technology
• Country: USA
• Known For: Co-founding Microsoft, creating Windows, and leading the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Bill Gates (aka William Henry Gates III) is an American businessman and philanthropist. Bill Gates is best known as the co-founder of Microsoft.

Bill Gates was the world’s richest person for 18 years, including 13 straight years from 1995 to 2007. His current net worth is about $115 billion.

Interesting Facts About Bill Gates:

• Bill Gates was #1 on the “Forbes World’s Billionaires List” for 12 consecutive years from 1995 to 2007.
• Bill Gates started programming computers at age 13, dropped out of Harvard, and co-founded Microsoft (formerly Micro Soft) with Paul Allen in 1975.

17. CNN

• Username: CNN
• Category: News media, journalism
• Country: USA
• Known For: 24/7 cable news coverage of politics and world events

CNN stands for Cable News Network, the world leader in global news and 24/7 news coverage. 

CNN reaches millions of viewers across TV, websites, and mobile apps, making it one of the most popular news brands worldwide.

Interesting Facts About CNN:

• CNN was the world’s first 24-hour news channel, launched by Ted Turner on June 1, 1980.
• CNN was the first network to broadcast live from the Gulf War.

18. X (formerly Twitter)

• Username: @x
• Category: Social media, microblogging
• Country: USA
• Known For: Acquired by Elon Musk for $44 billion in 2022, and for providing real-time news worldwide

X (formerly Twitter) is a popular microblogging social network that is widely used for short posts (up to 280 characters), trending topics, and breaking news.

After Elon Musk’s acquisition, Twitter became X and is now transforming into an “everything app” with long-form content, video calls, and Grok AI integration.

Interesting Facts About X (formerly Twitter):

• Over 500 million tweets are posted daily, and the first one was sent on March 21, 2006, by Twitter creator Jack Dorsey.
• You can send up to 500 DMs a day and post up to 2,400 times a day on X.

19. CNN Breaking News

• Username: @cnnbrk
• Category: Breaking news
• Country: USA
• Known For: Real-time alerts of major headlines, disasters, politics, and global events

CNN Breaking News is a sub-branch of the CNN news channel that provides real-time coverage of the U.S., world, weather, entertainment, politics, and health.

Interesting Facts About CNN Breaking News:

• It is one of the most-followed news accounts on X
• Known for posting real-time news and updates on world news, politics, disasters, etc

20. Selena Gomez

• Username: @selenagomez
• Category: Music
• Country: USA
• Known For: Singing and acting 

Selena Gomez is an American singer, actress, and producer with a massive following on social media platforms.

She’s popular for her hit albums like Rare and Revival, as well as singles such as “Lose You to Love Me”. She’s also acted in Wizards of Waverly Place, Only Murders in the Building, and voiced Mavis in Hotel Transylvania. 

Interesting Facts About Selena Gomez:

• She was named after the famous Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez
• Selena Gomez was in a relationship with Justin Bieber from 2010 to 2018.
• Became the youngest UNICEF ambassador

21. Neymar

• Username: NeymarJr
• Category: Sports / Football
• Country: Brazil
• Known For: Brazilian football player who has the most international goals of any Brazilian footballer

Neymar da Silva Santos Junior, widely known as Neymar, is a professional football player from Brazil. 

He currently plays for Santos FC in Brazil’s top league, Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A, where he is also the team captain. Neymar Jr is famous for his incredible football skills, as he’s Brazil’s all-time top goalscorer, with 79 goals in 128 matches.

Interesting Facts About Neymar:

• Neymar helped Brazil win its first Olympic gold medal in men’s football in 2016.
• He broke football legend Pelé’s record and became Brazil’s all-time top scorer in international matches with 79 goals.

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Final Thoughts

From celebrities to politicians, athletes, and brands, X is widely used by millions of people. Most of the top X influencers, including Modi, Musk, and Trump, post daily and attract millions of views.

Over the last couple of years, X has grown from a microblogging platform into a global platform for news, entertainment, and discussion.

So what are your thoughts on the most followed X accounts of all time? Which one surprised you the most, or which account do you follow the most? Let us know in the comments.

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FAQs

Here are some commonly asked questions on the most-followed X accounts.