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US President Joe Biden on Monday joined Threads, Meta’s social media rival to Elon Musk’s X, just days after the White House fired the tech baron for promoting anti-Semitism.
“People, this is President Biden,” said his first post, which he made on his 81st birthday. “You are hearing from me today from a new platform but my message to you has not changed.”
“I don’t see a dark, gloomy, divided future for America,” Biden added. “I saw an American about to fly.”
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, home of Facebook and Instagram, launched Threads in July in a bid to displace Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, as the go-to platform for celebrities, companies and government to make public statements.
The White House confirmed that it has launched Threads accounts for the president, First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, her husband Douglas Emhoff and the White House itself in English and Spanish.
“The threads are one more way we can communicate with the American people about this administration’s historic actions to create 14 million jobs, lower prescription drug costs, and protect freedoms and more,” a White House official said.
The official added that the launch has been underway for several weeks.
But Biden’s debut on the platform comes just three days after a White House spokesman condemned Musk, the world’s richest man, for the “disgusting promotion” of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
Advertisers also abandoned X after the controversial Tesla and SpaceX tycoon last week responded to an anti-Semitic post on the platform with the words: “You tell the real truth.”
The White House repeated its condemnation of Musk on Monday, but said there were no plans yet to change US proposals to use a version of its Starship rocket for future Moon landings.
“That does not mean that we accept or condone or condone, in any way, that anti-Semitic rhetoric that he pushed,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in a briefing.
While White House communications director Ben LaBolt promoted the president’s first Threads post — on X.
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