Elon Musk offers Wikipedia $1 billion to rename it “Dickipedia”

Billionaire Elon Musk spent $1 billion on a joke — specifically, renaming Wikipedia “Dickipedia” as right-wing distrust of the open-source database grows.

Last year, Musk broke the internet when he bought Twitter for $44 billion and stripped it down to the bone, turning it into a monetization mill that charges fees for blue ticks and subscriptions for verified accounts, potentially stripping the platform of all users Bills 1 dollar per month. Now Twitter/X is worth a tenth of what it was when Musk bought it. Fortune reported last September that Twitter/X had lost 90% of its value and could be worth as little as $4 billion.

He’s at it again, now with Wikipedia.

On October 22, billionaire Musk posted a screenshot on X, formerly Twitter, showing that “Wikipedia is not for sale.” He then offered the database $1 billion if it changed Wikipedia’s name to Dickipedia, even if it quickly changed it back.

“Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? “It’s certainly not necessary to run Wikipedia,” Musk posited. “You can literally put a copy of the entire text on your phone! So what is the money for? Curious people want to know.”

X users used the app’s “Add Context” feature to answer his question. “Expenses: $146 million – 43-45% Technical improvements, product development, design and research, and legal support – 31-32% Grants, projects, training, contributor tools, and editor legal defense support – 13% Administration – 11-12% fundraising,” users wrote.

The next day, Musk posted on X that he was offering the platform $1 billion if it changed its name to “Dickipedia.” “I’ll give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia,” he posted, adding that they could change the name again.

He responded to his post, adding: “In the interest of accuracy.”

Wikipedia is the world’s largest database and uses the first Google result that appears when users ask questions on the Internet. Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001, before the events of September 11th. Although Wikipedia is certainly not considered an academic primary source, it consists of freely editable content and articles are hyperlinked to provide readers with further information.

The articles are co-authored by volunteers called Wikipedians, who are usually anonymous. It is not a source because Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone with Internet access, except in certain cases where editing is restricted.

The right’s growing distrust of Wikipedia

A 2021 article from the Cato Institute suggested that we have already lost the battle against disinformation online, but right now people are arguing over who controls the agenda on Wikipedia. Media platforms tend to lean left or right, especially on outlets like cable news, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to filter out the nonsense.

But why do right-wing extremists distrust Wikipedia?

In 2022, a Wikipedia article on recession was viewed over 200,000 times. Right-wing conspiracy theorists claim Wikipedia manipulated its definition of a recession to benefit the Biden administration.

Conservative news platform The Daily Signal speculated about a left-leaning Wikipedia bias. “You see the pattern when comparing political donations from different professions: surgeons, oil workers, truck drivers, loggers and pilots trend to the right; Artists, bartenders, librarians, reporters and teachers are leaning left,” wrote Daily Signal writer John Stossel.

Elon Musk buys Twitter

In April 2022, Musk bought Twitter with a plan to change everything.

According to a press release dated April 25, 2022, Musk has acquired Twitter, Inc. The move made Twitter private and sparked a firestorm of speculation, but no one could have predicted the dramatic changes that lay ahead. Twitter, Inc. entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by a company wholly owned by Musk for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion.

Musk has completely overhauled the platform formerly known as Twitter, but here is a quick summary of some of Musk’s changes:

NBC News reports that the monetization of the blue ticks fuels fake news about the Israeli-Palestinian war – typically old war footage or even role-playing activities disguised as new acts of violence.

“People who have paid blue checks have a financial incentive to LARP [live action role-play] as war reporters, by digging up old stories or fake footage,” wrote Emerson T. Brooking, a researcher at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab. “Elon Musk makes this possible.”

Time will tell whether Musk can also buy edits on Wikipedia.