Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has taken on the US GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump in a Twitter war that is fast leaving all Twitter trends far behind. Alwaleed is the founder of Kingdom Holding and is also Citigroup's largest individual shareholder Alwaleed said on Twitter that he has bailed out the billionaire twice – then adding that his help might be needed a third time. This was in response to Trump's retweet of a photoshopped image showing the prince with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, calling him a co-owner of the network. Huffpo, via Buzzfeed, reports that the prince's tweet included news stories showing that he bought Trump's yacht in 1991, which had been turned over to creditors when he was $900 million in debt, After trump's call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, bin Talal urged him to quit the presidential race. Trump on social media Not only is billionaire Donald Trump outpolling the rest of the Republican presidential field, the former reality TV star has charged ahead of megastars Justin Bieber and Kanye West for celebrity mentions on social media, according to new data from the past month. Trump raked in nearly 13.5 million Twitter mentions since Dec. 30, according to SocialFlow, a social media publishing platform. This put the real estate developer well ahead of virtually every major celebrity in the United States including Justin Bieber who brought in roughly 8 million, Kanye West with 6.2 million and Rihanna with 5.7 million. Trump's Twitter account (@realDonaldTrump) has more than 5.9 million followers. "If Trump gets elected there is no doubt in my mind Kanye replaces him in 2020," tweeted Peick (@andrewpeick) on Friday. "Donald Trump is the new Justin Bieber," tweeted Guess Who?! (@Vase_) on Friday. Trump has also proved his social media clout over his fellow Republican candidates. During Thursday's Republican presidential debate, the business tycoon commanded 36 percent of the Twitter traffic, according to data provided by the social media site. That was far more than his competitors on the main stage, even though Trump did not attend the debate. Trump's dominance of social media was not constant, however. On Wednesday, Kanye West's Twitter beef with fellow rapper Wiz Khalifa put his one-day mentions over Trump. Even the late rock star David Bowie was a social media hero, just for one day. The day after he died, Twitter mentions of Bowie outpaced those of The Donald on Jan. 11. Source: Emirates 24/7
