President Obama finally has his own Twitter account

WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- After six years of signing off tweets as "-B.O." on @BarackObama, the president of the United States now has his own twitter account that he controls himself.

On Monday morning, @POTUS tweeted for the first time from the Oval Office, writing: "Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account."

Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account.

— President Obama (@POTUS) May 18, 2015

A statement released by the White House said: "The @POTUS Twitter account will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him. President Obama is committed to making his Administration the most open and participatory in history, and @POTUS will give Americans a new venue to engage on the issues that matter most to them."

His bio reads: "Dad, husband, and 44th President of the United States" and his banner photo is a shot of the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches.

A little over an hour from his first tweet, the president gained over 356,000 followers.