T-Mobile’s John Legere is on par with the Pope in Twitter’s eyes.
The social network just gave the T-Mobile chief executive its top honor—an emoji of his likeness—which Twitter has only previously gifted to one other person outside of promotionsand partnerships: Pope Francis, CNN Money reported. From Monday (March 29) through Thursday, people can share a smirking emoji of Legere by tweeting with the hashtag #tweetjohn.
5/ @twittergave me my own emoji!! Can you guess what the hashtag is that activates it?! pic.twitter.com/AmzfBWxZGg
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 28, 2016
The 57-year-old, who is one of the most outspoken CEOs on social media, caught Twitter’s eye with his social savviness. The company chose to highlight Legere because he paved the way for other CEOs on social media by mixing personal and professional tweets in a way that humanizes the T-Mobile brand, a personal familiar with the matter told Quartz.
Selfies from the grocery aisle, cat GIFs, and profanity-laced video responsesare not what you’d expect to find in tweets from the head of the US’s third-largest wireless carrier. But they’re among Legere’s specialities.
He’s a rarity among CEOs—known for tweeting back-and-forth directly with customers and fielding service questions and complaints. The rabble-rouser also stirs things up with larger rivals AT&T and Verizon on the social network, and has gotten into public tiffswith politicians such as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
He’s so active on Twitter— averaging 16 tweets a dayduring the three years that he’s been active on the social network—that he places the same stock on social communications as he does the company’s SEC filings, conference calls, and presentations.
Legere took to Twitter on Monday to tout the honor, and rub it in his rivals’ faces.
2/ I spend more time on twitter than I should admit – i.e. a lot more time than other CEOs spend on the golf course (and that’s a lot)
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 28, 2016
4/ But who’d have thought it would turn into something so vital to running @tmobile! And I never thought I’d be rewarded for it! :)
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 28, 2016
7/ Stay tuned!! You know I’ve got a fun way to use this emoji to make competition squirm ;) #tweetjohn
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 28, 2016
He was also spotted on Sunday (March 28) sporting a pink hoodie with the emoji.
Happy #slowcookersundayand the Easter Slow Cooker Lamb Chops with orange sauce are IN! Time to run! #HappyEaster pic.twitter.com/rJjyiB9bid
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 27, 2016
Updated on Mar. 28 at 2pm EST : This post was updated to include details on why Twitter chose to highlight Legere and clarify that Twitter has created emojis of other individuals as part of promotions and partnerships.