New York: You can’t keep Elon Musk out of the headlines for too long.
In the news on a regular basis since acquiring microblogging platform Twitter – which he later renamed a X – last October, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla made heads turn again by saying that he would pay Wikipedia $1 billion if they changed their name.
“I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia,” Muk tweeted, adding that he would do so “in the interests of accuracy.”
The billionaire then set another condition, after an X user urged Wikipedia to go ahead with the name change.
“@Wikipedia, Do it! You can always change it back after you collect,” the user wrote, to which Musk replied, “One year minimum. I mean, I’m a not fool lol.”
Musk later shared a screenshot of Wikipedia’s homepage which mentioned “Wikipedia is not for sale” and “a personal appeal from Jimmy Wales”, and added, “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…”
Wikipedia founder Wales had taken a dig at Musk five months ago for censoring critics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, a day before the country’s high-octane Presidential election. Wales called out Musk for not supporting free speech by accepting Turkey’s demands to restrict content.
In a follow-up post, Musk asked if a cow and a poop emoji could be added to his Wikipedia page.
Musk’s Wikipedia post has amassed 12.8 million views and 1.3 lakh likes, and counting, in less than 24 hours.
