Elon Musk recently made a bold offer of an ₹8000 crore donation to Wikipedia, but with a unique condition attached. The Tesla CEO and owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, took to his social media account to propose this substantial donation if Wikipedia would consider changing its name.
"I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia," he stated, humorously suggesting that this would be in pursuit of greater accuracy, as per his perspective on Wikipedia.
When a user encouraged Wikipedia to proceed with the name change, Mr. Musk set forth another condition. "@Wikipedia, Do it! You can always change it back after you collect," suggested the user. Musk replied, "One year minimum. I mean, I'm not a fool lol.
"In a separate post, he shared a screenshot of Wikipedia's homepage, which featured messages stating "Wikipedia is not for sale" and "a personal appeal from Jimmy Wales." Mr. Musk 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..."
This isn't the first instance of Musk and Wikipedia encountering friction. In May, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales criticized Musk for restricting certain content on X leading up to Turkey's presidential election, according to reports by Business Insider. The publication also noted that the social media platform had apparently become more compliant with government requests for censorship and surveillance under Musk's leadership.
In 2018, Musk expressed his intention to create a website called Pravda, where the public could rate the "core truth" of any article and "track the credibility score" of journalists, editors, and their publications.
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