Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently said he would give one billion dollars to Wikipedia if it changes its name "in the interest of accuracy."
In a series of tweets, the X owner said he wants Wikipedia to change its name to "Dickipedia." “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia,” he wrote. He also shared a screenshot by the free online encyclopedia that said "Wikipedia is not for sale."
Musk asked Wikipedia to add this request to the "b******t" on his wiki page.
In another tweet, he 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 …"
When one of his followers asked Wikipedia to do what Musk suggested and change back to the original name after collecting the money promised by the billionaire businessman, the latter responded, "One year minimum. I mean, I’m a not fool."
A user suggested that Musk should buy Wikipedia and make AI in-charge of updating the platform, while another asked him to consider "spending a fraction of that and create an alternative."
There is indeed a history to Musk's dig at Wikipedia. Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales had, in December 2022, told Musk that the online encyclopedia is "not for sale" after the latter accused the platform of having "left wing bias."
In an interview to The Times of London in April, Wales had revealed he told Musk that reading too much of Twitter was making him stupid.