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Obama Charlottesville tweet is now the most liked ever

Former president Barack Obama still knows how to find the right words after a national tragedy. 

With more than 2.7 million likes and counting, Obama's tweet Saturday quoting Nelson Mandela in the wake of white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va., is now the most liked tweet since Twitter launched.

The tweet broke the record at approximately 10:07 ET on Tuesday, Twitter said. It is also the fifth most retweeted tweet ever.

One woman was killed and 19 people were injured when a man, who had been a part of a white supremacist rally in downtown Charlottesville, rammed his car into a crowd of people. 

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." Obama's tweet read. 

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The quote is from former South African president Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. 

I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Obama shared more of the quote in two more tweets, which got 1 million and 900,000 likes respectively. 

By contrast, President Trump's first tweet in response to the tragic scene in Charlottesville got about 186,000 likes.

The previous most liked tweet was pop singer Ariana Grande's post after the terror attack at her concert in Manchester, England.

Of course, not everyone agreed with Obama's sentiment. 

Some users called on the former president to condemn the violence "from either side." 

Others blamed the Charlottesville violence on Obama. 

Editor's note: This post has been updated to remove an embedded tweet from an account that could have been interpreted as belonging to National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster.

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