(CNN) -- CNN marked a milestone Monday. Just before noon, the @cnnbrk account topped 10 million followers on Twitter. That puts our Twitter account in the company of Lady Gaga, President Barack Obama and Cristiano Ronaldo. 

To mark the occasion, it's worth reflecting how we got here. 

The first tweet on @cnnbrk wasn't news, and it wasn't written by an employee of CNN. 

"Testing" is what James Cox tweeted in January 2007. 

Cox said he started the account as a way to receive CNN's breaking news alerts on his phone. The account started to grow and gain attention. Journalist and fellow developer Brian Boyer posted this to his blog back in 2008: "@cnnbrk ain't CNN but with >30K followers, he owns the brand." 

Cox wrote a response to that post: "I've been in contact with CNN -- they won't sue, i'm fairly sure, however i'm constantly dealing with the problem of confusion -- users still think that @cnnbrk is an official feed, therefore making me a defacto CNN employee, which is a problem." 

We didn't sue, but we did work out a deal to get the handle. 

As we celebrate reaching the 10-million-follower mark, Cox is the first person we should thank. 

The second person to thank, naturally, is Ashton Kutcher. In 2009, he challenged CNN to a competition to see who could first reach 1 million followers. Kutcher won. At more than 13 million followers, @aplusk is still in the lead. And we're still coming after him. 

We have a simple approach to @cnnbrk, and we believe that's one of the keys to its success. Breaking news, from an organization that built its brand on breaking news. Straight up. 
Who else does the network thank?
The second person to thank, naturally, is Ashton Kutcher.