Billionaire Elon Musk has just made a bold donation offer to Wikipedia if this online open encyclopedia is willing to change the name of its website.
According to Yahoo News, in the statement on X, Elon Musk wrote: “I will give them $1 billion if they change their name to Dickipedia. Please add that on my Wiki page for the sake of accuracy.” Immediately after this announcement, journalist Ed Krassenstein called on the Wikimedia Foundation to agree because they could always reclaim the name. However, Mr. Musk replied: “At least a year. I’m not stupid.”
Musk’s offer stems from an earlier tweet where he criticized the Wikimedia Foundation for wanting too much money. He said: “It certainly doesn’t take that much to work with Wikipedia. You can literally copy the entire text on your phone. So what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know that”.
The Wikimedia Foundation then issued an explanation via its own Community Notes, explaining that the free information organization handles “more than 25 billion page views per month and more than 44 million edits.” site repairs every month, which requires significant operating costs.” The note also provides additional context that the Wikimedia Foundation uses third-party financial auditors to release reports to the public.
This isn’t the first time Musk and Wikipedia have gone head-to-head. co-founder In May, Wikipedia Jimmy Wales criticized Musk for his decision to restrict certain content on X ahead of the Turkish presidential election. also, Business Insider reported that the social media platform has reportedly become more compliant with government requests for censorship and surveillance under Musk’s leadership.
In 2018, Mr. Musk tweeted his intention to create a website called Pravda, where the public could evaluate the “core facts” of any article and “track the credibility scores” of journalists, editors, and their publications
