Big Social Media Week for Tech Titans

The week of May 25-31 was full of major headlines for many titans of the tech industry. The major news events over the period--spurred in part by media startup Re/code's Code Conference and anticipation for Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference--resulted in surges of social media mention for a handful of big-name CEOs, according to data gathered for Inc. by social intelligence company Synthesio. Here is a rundown of how and when these CEOs got people talking last week: 

Mark Zuckerberg

The Facebook CEO had a big week of social media mentions. Of the 25 tech CEOs Synthesio tracks, Zuckerberg was the most frequently mentioned on Twitter and other social platforms on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. He peaked on Tuesday, May 27 with 7,542 mentions after news broke that he was summoned to appear in Iranian court to address complaints by individuals who claimed Instagram and WhatsApp (both owned by Facebook) violate their privacy. The greatest number of mentions of Zuckerberg in a single day took place on Friday, May 30 when it was announced that he donated $120 million to charity. 

Elon Musk

Despite all the headlines Zuckerberg made for his philanthropy on May 30, his social media buzz that day was dwarfed by Elon Musk. The SpaceX CEO was mentioned a total of 15,264 times after he unveiled the Dragon V2--SpaceX's entry in an ongoing NASA competition to build a commercial crew capsule, or "space taxi," to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Musk's popularity carried over into Saturday, when he was again the most frequently mentioned CEO on Synthesio's list.

Satya Nadella

The Microsoft CEO experienced a surge in social mentions on Wednesday, May 28 after an interview with journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at Re/code's Code Conference the previous night. The CEO, appointed in the beginning of February, shared his vision for the future of the software giant and addressed missteps the company made in the past.

Tim Cook

It is little surprise that Apple CEO Tim Cook's social mentions surged on Thursday, May 29 after Apple announced that it had acquired headphone and music streaming company Beats for $3 billion. Cook received 14,075 mentions on Thursday after the acquisition was made public. The executive also started off this week on a strong note with the start of Apple's WWDC conference.

Below is a chart showing which of these CEOs had the greatest number of mentions on social each day during the week of May 25 through May 31.