Elon Musk jokes he'll give $1B to Wikipedia if site changes name
Musk mocked the encyclopedia site's open-source structure and ease with which it can be edited to include misinformation
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Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, joked over the weekend that he would offer a billion dollars for a crude joke.
Musk mocked open-source encyclopedia site Wikipedia on Sunday, offering to "give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia."
"In the interests of accuracy," he added, referencing professional and academic communities' avoidance of the website due to its freely editable system.
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Elon Musk arrives for a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum for all U.S. senators hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo / Reuters Photos)
The joke was part of a longer series of posts criticizing the online encyclopedia that continued into the next days.
Of particular scorn was the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit in charge of Wikipedia — which Musk questioned for its frequent appeals for donations from users.
"Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia," he wrote on X. "You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone! So, what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know …"
Computer screen showing the website for free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. (In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images / Getty Images)
"Wikipedia is inherently hierarchical and therefore subject to the biases of higher ranking editors, independent of their merits," Musk wrote on Monday.
Musk compared and contrasted Wikipedia to X's information correction function known as "Community Notes."
"@CommunityNotes requires people with historically different points of view, based on how they have rated and written Notes, to agree in order for Notes to be shown to the public," Musk continued. "All code and data is open source, so you can recreate the outcome yourself."
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In this photo illustration, an X Premium account of Elon Musk is displayed on a mobile phone screen in front of a computer screen displaying "X" logo. (Harun Ozalp/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Community Notes relies on user submissions and votes to determine whether a correction is necessary for a claim made in a post on the platform.
"Crucially, even I, as the controlling shareholder of the company, cannot change the outcome of a Note. This is an extremely fundamental difference," he added.