Here's why Twitter ex-CEO Evan Williams was paying Dalai Lama's cell phone bills for years

In an interview with Bloomberg, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams stated that he was personally paying Dalai Lama's cell phone bill for many years after the Tibetan spiritual leader opened his account on the social media platform.

Williams remembered the fun moment when he was given the task of introducing Twitter to Dalai Lama and made him open an account on the micro-blogging application. Williams said that after meeting Dalai Lama, he came to know that the Tibetan spiritual leader wasn't actually briefed about the product and its working.

Dalai Lama's Blackberry phone and its bill

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So Williams had to handhold him a little, get him to open an account on Twitter and even provided him with a Blackberry phone so that the spiritual leader can use Twitter. However, Dalai Lama was not the only one who got his account opened by Williams.

He revealed that he also assisted popular American TV show host Oprah Winfrey in opening her Twitter account and alsoposted her first tweet.

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"Another memorable one (apart from Oprah Winfrey) was the Dalai Lama, who supposedly wanted to be on Twitter. It was super awkward. He's delightful obviously but it felt like I was there to sell him on Twitter. And I said, 'So, we are going to get you on'and he's like 'I don't need that'. But I was told that's why we're here. I thought this was all sold through already. This was pre-iPhone, I think. And so, we got his account all set up. So, we just gave him the Blackberry. And he used this account or one of his people used this account for years but my wife and I paid the bill for the Blackberry. So, we were paying the Dalai Lama's cell phone bill for a very long time," recounted Williams with joy.

The Twitter account of Dalai Lama says that he joined the social media platform in February 2009. Currently, Dalai Lama enjoys 18.8 million followers and generally his tweets centre around compassion, global peace, humanity and education.

Jack Dorsey launched Twitter in March 2006.

Williams at Oprah Winfrey show

Remembering his appearance on 17 April 2009at the Oprah Winfrey Show, Williams said that he made her post her first tweet.

"I got invited on Oprah. The plan was I'd talk about Twitter. She'd ask me a couple of questions. She'd send her first tweet on air. And then she hit the key with the yellow tape on it. It didn't send the tweet and the tweet went away. So, I typed in her tweet," stated Williams.

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Oprah Winfrey's first tweet, which Williams had helped in pushing out, reads: "HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21ST CENTURY"

Oprah Winfrey joining the social media application was considered a turning point for Twitter in its early days. Now after 14 years, Oprah has garnered 42.3 million followers on the social media platform and Twitter was bought by Elon Musk for $44 billion last year.

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