Elon Musk made a bold donation offer to Wikipedia, on one condition.
The Tesla CEO and owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, took to his social media account to offer the online encylcopedia a generous donation if they're willing to rename their site.
"I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia," wrote Musk. "Please add that to the [cow and poop emojis] on my wiki page," he continued. "In the interests of accuracy."
Journalist Ed Krassenstein later chimed in to encourage the organization to make the switch. "Do it! You can always change it back after you collect," wrote Krassenstein. "One year minimum. I mean, I'm not a fool lol," responded Musk.
Musk's "offer" stems from an earlier tweet where he criticized the Wikimedia Foundation for wanting so much money. "It certainly isn't needed to operate Wikipedia. You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone!" tweeted Musk. "So, what's the money for? Inquiring minds want to know ... "
He didn't have to wait very long for an explanation, courtesy of the app's very own Community Notes citing that the free information organization handles "over 25B page views per month and over 44M page edits a month, requiring substantial operating costs." The notes also provided additional context that the Wikimedia Foundation employs third party financial auditors whose reports are made available to the public.
It's not the first time Musk and Wikipedia have butted heads. In May, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales criticized Musk for his decision to restrict certain content on X in the lead-up to Turkey's presidential election, according to reporting by Business Insider. The publication also reports that the social media platform had reportedly become more compliant with government requests for censorship and surveillance under Musk's leadership.
In 2018, Musk tweeted his intentions to create a website named Pravda where the general public could rate the "core truth" of any article and "track the credibility score" of journalists, editors, and their publications.
