'Warren is in the house.' Billionaire Warren Buffett joins Twitter.
鈥淲arren is in the house.鈥�
If there鈥檚 one thing Warren Buffett knows, it鈥檚 how to make a return on an investment. His Twitter debut was no different. The billionaire known as the 鈥�Oracle of Omaha鈥� for his moneymaking acumen took just the 25 characters above to announce himself on the social networking site at 12:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, and he flipped that into 15,223 retweets and 78,888 followers (and counting) in an hour and a half. What's more, he first took to Twitter during a discussion about women in business, in which he argued that America would be more productive if women were in more key leadership positions.聽
He鈥檚 also raised the collective net worth of the Twitterverse considerably, becoming the second-wealthiest verified account holder behind Bill Gates, as noted by Forbes. (Carlos Slim, the world鈥檚 wealthiest man, isn鈥檛 on Twitter yet.)
Outside of the financial world and his new role as a noted feminist, Mr. Buffett doesn鈥檛 have the same sort of immediate household name recognition as say, Bill Clinton, who also started tweeting recently. So in case you aren鈥檛 familiar, here鈥檚 a few key facts about a guy who could easily make a case for being the real 鈥渕ost interesting man in the world: He鈥檚 a self-made billionaire, worth an estimated $53.3 billion as of 2013. His firm, Berkshire Hathaway, owns several notable companies, including GEICO Insurance, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, and Helzberg Diamonds outright, as well as stakes in Heinz, American Express, IBM, and others. He still lives in the same $31,500 home in Omaha that he bought in 1957 (though he also owns a $4 million vacation home in California). The caption under his senior picture in the high school yearbook reads, 鈥淟ikes math; a future stockbroker.鈥�
Despite his vast wealth, he鈥檚 also become somewhat of a champion of economic policies to reduce income inequality. President Obama鈥檚 proposed minimum tax rate of 30 percent on people earning more than $1 million per year became known as the 鈥淏uffett Rule鈥� after Buffett wrote in a New York Times op-ed that it was unfair that wealthy people like him paid a lower effective tax rate than middle-income earners. He has also pledged to give away 99 percent of his wealth to charitable causes.
So now that Buffett is tweeting, what can we expect from his feed? 聽If he鈥檚 the one really doing the tweeting, probably more personality than we鈥檝e generally come to expect from the accounts of such highly visible people. He鈥檚 renowned for his writings; his annual shareholder letters are events unto themselves, and he鈥檚 lauded as a great communicator who gives advice described by at least one person as 鈥渋n the Midwestern folk style, with numerous jokes.鈥�
One thing we can鈥檛 expect: stock tips. Buffett doesn鈥檛 give them out, though he does occasionally offer windows into his thinking. In May of last year,聽 he told reporters that he was steering clear of the much-hyped Facebook IPO because he didn鈥檛 understand the company well enough. As he often is, he turned out to be right.聽
