Hyderabad: Elon Musk, the man behind SpaceX and Tesla, known for his bizarre posts on his social media handle on X (formerly Twitter) has once again come into the limelight with his latest dig at Wikipedia, the digital encyclopedia.
Billionaire Elon Musk said that he is ready to pay Wikipedia $1 billion if they change their name. "I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia," Musk wrote on X.
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I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia https://t.co/wxoHQdRICy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
">I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia https://t.co/wxoHQdRICy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2023I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia https://t.co/wxoHQdRICy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2023
Replying to a user who urged Wikipedia to go ahead with the name change, Musk said, "One year minimum. I mean, I'm a not fool lol". The user earlier wrote, "Wikipedia, Do it! You can always change it back after you collect." Elon Musk added another post in which he shared a screenshot of Wikipedia's homepage which said "Wikipedia is not for sale" and "a personal appeal from Jimmy Wales".
The X owner said, "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 ..."
The online battle between Wales and Musk is not new. Earlier, Wales criticised Musk for purportedly censoring critics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a day ahead of Turkey's contentious presidential elections. Wales mentioned that Wikipedia encountered similar pressures, they took a resolute stand and even fought their way up to Turkey's Supreme Court, thereby emphasising the importance of upholding freedom of speech as a principle and not just a catchphrase.
To this, Billionaire Musk took a stand against the criticism by questioning the financial transparency of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that runs Wikipedia.
