Elon Musk says he will give $1 billion to Wikipedia if the free online encyclopedia is willing to make some changes.
Musk has been in the news since his takeover of Twitter, which has changed to X. The 52-year-old billionaire has a reputation for intriguing users across the globe through his X posts.
Musk has been catching flak for saying people who work from home are “detached from reality“. Now, the tech mogul is claiming he would pay Wikipedia $1 billion if they changed their name.
Why is Elon Musk willing to give Wikipedia $1 million?
“I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia,” he said, adding that he would do so “in the interests of accuracy.”
Even before Wikipedia could respond, Musk set another condition. “@Wikipedia, Do it! You can always change it back after you collect,” one user said. To which, Musk replied, “One year minimum. I mean, I’m a not fool lol.”
In a separate post, Musk shared a screenshot of Wikipedia’s homepage, which mentions “Wikipedia is not for sale” and “a personal appeal from Jimmy Wales”.
“Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia. You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone! So, what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know,” Musk wrote.
In a follow-up post, Musk asked if a cow and a poop emoji could be added to his Wikipedia page. Unsurprisingly, the post had gained 9.9 million views and over a lakh likes at the time of writing.
(Please add that to the 🐄💩 on my wiki page)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2023
“They’re always asking for donations, so be careful. They might come to collect,” said a user. “Sounds like that cage match challenge,” another user noted.
A third person commented, “Buy it and put AI in charge of updating it autonomously.”
“Typical rich guy… Only willing to donate if the institution names itself after him!” remarked a user.
Another person added, “Looking at the replies I just can’t imagine these people are waking the same earth as me lmao.”
Elon Musk vs. Jimmy Wales
Back in May, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales criticised Musk for censoring critics of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, a day before the country’s presidential election.
He accused Musk of not supporting free speech when he caved to Turkey’s demands to restrict content. In his post, Wales noted that Wikipedia pushed back when he faced a similar situation.
“Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” Musk responded.
In response, Wales wrote: “What Wikipedia did: we stood strong for our principles and fought to the Supreme Court of Turkey and won. This is what it means to treat freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan.”
To recap, Turkey blocked Wikipedia for over two years when the telecommunications watchdog cited a law allowing it to ban access to sites considered obscene or a threat to national security.
