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Elon Musk has started a feud with Wikipedia. The billionaire said he would give $1 billion to the encyclopedia website if it changes its name to “Dickipedia” for at least one year.
Over the weekend, Musk first blamed Wikipedia and its parent company, Wikimedia Foundation, over the bias of its higher-ranking editors and asking for donations. The X owner tweeted, “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!”
While Musk decided to mock Wikipedia, he probably doesn’t know that the Wikimedia Foundation spent over $2.7 million last year to host the encyclopedia website. Wikipedia is a free platform for everyone, and there’s no shame in asking for donations. On the other hand, the reports show X has lost over 600 million visitors in September.
Elon Musk trolls Wikipedia and offers $1 billion for changing the name
Wikipedia is traditionally known as a source of information for many people. However, Musk allegedly disagrees and believes X is a more reliable source of news and opinions. The billionaire tweeted that X Community Notes consists of people with historically different points of view who review notes and approve them for public view. “Crucially, even I, as the controlling shareholder of the company, cannot change the outcome of a Note,” Musk added.
Another thing that might have led to Musk’s feud with Wikipedia is a report by NewsGuard. The report said most of the disinformation on X about the Israel-Hamas conflict comes from verified accounts. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is an adviser to NewsGuard.
In a statement to PCMag, the Wikimedia Foundation said, “Wikipedia is the only website among the top 10 most-visited global websites that is run by a nonprofit.” The statement adds the foundation spends most of the donations on improving the Wikipedia website and keeping up the free knowledge mission. To put X on blast, the Wikimedia Foundation noted they don’t charge a subscription fee and don’t sell user data.
The latest report by the Wikimedia Foundation shows the institution generated $154 million in revenue in 2022. However, they aalso spent $146 on expenses. Engineering improvements and product development account for 43% of the costs. Another 32% is spent on paying grants, projects, and tools.