Money isn’t everything but with a lot of money, you can get A LOT of things done. Billionaire and founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk has expressed his thoughts of doing many, many things over the past years.
Elon, who also bought Twitter and changed the platform to X recently had another thought in mind, and another chunk of money to spend. He’s offering USD1 billion (approximately RM4.7 billion) to Wikipedia if and only if they change their name to Dickipedia. He added that he would do so in the “interest of accuracy”.
Just, why? And how did it even lead to that?
Everything started when Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of the non-profit encyclopedia, Wikipedia tweeted about Elon’s decision to remove the core features of X which “made it even remotely possible to tell real journalists from fakes”.
Jimmy also explained that writers on Wikipedia, known as Wikipedians are not journalists until Elon himself responded,
“Please fix Wokipedia,” (yes, he spelled it that way.)
The debate about fixing Wikipedia continued for days on a number of tweets, which “commenced” on October 18, 2023. Elon initially ignored Jimmy’s request to respond to his initial tweet about the core changes on X, until the founder of Tesla eventually tweeted about Wikipedia’s recent expenses and revenue.
For Elon, the free encyclopedia does not need that much money to run the website.
“You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone! So, what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know.”
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 …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2023
If you’re a frequent user of Wikipedia, especially if you’re a student, you’re likely aware that at times, Wikipedia asks for a donation which is displayed on top of the pages. Jimmy, on the other hand, hasn’t responded to Elon’s tweet about Wikipedia’s expenses and revenue.
And just last night (October 23), Elon made headlines again with his USD1 billion offer for Wikipedia to change its name to Dickipedia, saying it’s a stiff and firm offer. Yes, Jimmy has yet to respond, and we doubt he will ever respond to this level of ridiculousness.
A netizen urged Jimmy to accept the billionaire’s offer, which is better than asking users to donate USD2.75 (approximately RM13).
Wikipedia should accept Elon Musk's billion dollar offer rather than asking its users for a $2.75 donation ? pic.twitter.com/WwFvjRQxyA
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) October 23, 2023
It’s Elon Musk vs. Wikipedia (or future Dickipedia?) now. Do you think we’ll ever see the day where Wikipedia changes its name to the one Elon has in mind?
