Modi breaks the 100-million-follower barrier on Instagram
Instagram is the third biggest platform for world leaders with 481,169,294 followers combined on the 753 accounts of heads of state and government, foreign ministers and their institutions, up from 700 accounts a year ago.
The typical
@Instagram audience remains smaller than on
@Facebook, with a median of 29,108 followers per account against 80,000 on Facebook, but the picture network is growing faster, with a median follower growth of 17% year-on-year compared to 15% on Facebook. Eleven leaders keep private Instagram accounts, and 22 accounts are dormant or inactive.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the first world leader to break the 100-million barrier on Instagram with almost 102 million followers on his personal
@NarendraModi account (+8%). His Instagram audience is almost twice the size of his Facebook page.
US President Donald Trump has a combined following of 63 million on his personal
@realdonaldtrump account, which grew by a third to 44 million, and the institutional
@POTUS account with 19 million. The
@WhiteHouse account registered one of the strongest growth rates of any institution, up 43% to 12 million followers.
Instagram is Volodymyr Zelenskyy's network of choice. With 16 million followers, the Ukrainian President is the third most followed leader on the platform, almost five times his Facebook audience.
Indonesia's
@Prabowo Subianto (15 million) is the only leader in the Top 10 losing followers (-1%), ahead of Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (14.6 million, +9%). Pope Leo XIV attracted 13.3 million followers on the new
@Pontifex account within his first year in office, instantly making him the seventh most followed world leader, whereas he has no personal presence on Facebook.
El Salvador's
@NayibBukele (11.9 million, +19%) and Türkiye's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (11.7 million) follow, ahead of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (9.1 million).
Argentina's Javier Milei comes in eleventh spot, with 6,433,202 followers, fewer than 30,000 ahead of French President
@EmmanuelMacron (6,405,925).
European leaders may trail in absolute numbers, but they are posting the strongest growth on the platform. Emmanuel Macron remains the most followed EU leader, up 44% year-on-year, just ahead of Italy's
@GiorgiaMeloni who grew 59% to 6 million followers. German Chancellor
@_FriedrichMerz reached 3.2 million followers combined on his personal account and the institutional
@Bundeskanzler account (+57%). Spain's Pedro Sánchez more than tripled his following to 1.6 million.
Collaboration is key.
Many leaders have started collaborationswith their friends and peers or their institutional accounts to reach a wider audience as the posts appear on up to five profiles. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi took the now historic ‘Melodi’ selfie during COP28 in 2023. Their most recent video collaboration in late May 2026 has generated more than 290 million views and 13 million interactions on Instagram alone and helped boost the Italian Prime Minister who is the most followed female leader on Instagram.
According to Donald Trump, Giorgia Meloni begged him for a photo at the G7 Summit in Evian in June 2026, a claim she has categorically denied. The exchange deepened the rift between the two politicians.
India's President Droupadi Murmu, whose @PresidentOfIndia account grew 28% to 5.8 million followers is the second most followed female leader ahead of Mexico's Claudia Sheinbaum (3.1 million, +32%), and Tanzania's Samia Suluhu Hassan (3.1 million, +12%). Japan's Prime Minister
@Takaichi_Sanae completes the female Top 5 with 1.3 million followers on Instagram, almost eight times her Facebook audience.
Geographically, Instagram is the mirror image of Facebook. Asian leaders and governments dominate with 213 million followers on 172 accounts, 44% of the total. Europe fields the most accounts of any continent, 245, but they total only 105 million followers. Africa, which has the most pages on Facebook, is Instagram's blind spot: its 162 accounts muster just 20 million followers combined with a median of 7,472. Latin American presidents, by contrast, have the largest typical audiences: with a median of more than 100,000 followers per account, South America tops all continents.
As on Facebook, personal accounts beat institutional ones: the 323 personal accounts hold 380 million followers, 79% of the total, compared with 87 million followers on the 408 institutional accounts.
Foreign ministers barely register on the picture network. The 102 personal accounts of foreign ministers have a median of only 6,689 followers. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the most followed foreign minister with 5.6 million followers combined across his personal (2.5 million), Secretary (2.1 million) and senatorial accounts. He more than tripled his following in a year, the strongest growth of any foreign minister, ahead of India's Subrahmanyam Jaishankar with 3.5 million followers (+37%).
All figures are as of 1 May 2026.
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