Satya Nadella tweets again; Twitter followers jump to 100K

Microsoft's new Indian-origin CEO returns to Twitter after 4 years.

Power corrupts, they say, but in the case of the Hyderabad (India)-born Satya Nadella, it has made him more social.

After Microsoft announced on Tuesday that founder Bill Gates was stepping aside as chairman to become an adviser to the tech giant as Indian-born Satya Nadella was named CEO, Nerdy Nadella quickly rose to prominence on social media and online searches.

In fact, according to Google Trends, ‘Satya Nadella’ was Tuesday’s most searched keyword/s in India (100,000+ searches), second in the US (200,000+ searches), and third in the UK (50,000+ searches).

In fact, he was the top trending ‘topic’ on Twitter in India on Wednesday, and continues to make waves across the world despite the fact that, until 6.28am UAE time on Wednesday, he hadn’t tweeted anything AT ALL since July 12, 2010 – and even that was a retweet about Microsoft Bing News beckoning Google haters – and not an original thought.

His previous original thought was tweeted on June 7, 2010, and in true nerd tradition, said: ‘HTML5 – what fun!’ That’s it – that was the entire tweet. Goes on to prove that there are people who make the 140-character Tweet limit look rather generous.

His published comment (on Microsoft Blog) after him taking over as CEO makes more profound reading: “The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must move faster, push harder and continue to transform,” Nadella said.

Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and former chairman of the board of directors, will assume a new role as technology advisor, and devote more time to the direction of the company’s products and technology.

“During this time of transformation and remarkable opportunity for Microsoft, there is no better person to lead the company than Satya,” Gates said.

Have a look at the video of Gates introducing Nadella as CEO to Microsoft staffers at their headquarters.

Anyways, back to Nerdy Nadella, and the 46-year-old, who has been both married and a Microsoft veteran for 22 years (we're not suggesting that he's married to the job), is back on Twitter with a clearly original tweet: ‘first commitment as CEO...i won't wait 4 years between tweets!’

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In fact, Twitter was so happy with the 3,515 retweets and the 2,646 favourites that Nadella’s first tweet as Microsoft CEO received that it was quick to verify his account. Almost in a blink of an eye, @SatyaNadella saw his followers jump about 73,000 - from some 27,000 pre-CEO days to 100,000 (and counting) - within a day of being anointed as Microsoft CEO.

No, if only he can get Microsoft to grow at the same rate...