Musk Confirms Offer of $1 Billion to Change Wikipedia's Name
The billionaire had earlier proposed to financially compensate the website in exchange for changing its name to “Dickipedia.” Read the full article at RT.com.
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The billionaire previously proposed paying the website to change its name to “Dickipedia.”
Elon Musk has confirmed that his offer to pay $1 billion for Wikipedia to change its name to “Dickipedia” is still on the table. The X owner initially made the proposal amid accusations that the encyclopedia has an embedded left-leaning bias.
On Tuesday, one X user recalled Musk’s offer, to which the billionaire replied, “True. Offer still stands.”
Earlier this year, Musk claimed that Wikipedia was “broken” and urged to “fix Wokipedia” amidst accusations that the website allows articles that label Republicans and US President-elect Donald Trump as “fascist” while promoting other left-wing narratives and painting the political right negatively. He stated that the encyclopedia is “controlled by far-left activists” and encouraged people to stop donating to it.
Musk has also raised questions about the Wikimedia Foundation’s requests for substantial amounts of money, arguing that “it certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia” because “you can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone.”
In response to these claims, the website previously clarified in a community note that while a text and English-only copy of Wikipedia is about 51GB, the complete encyclopedia, including all media and other languages, totals around 428TB. The organization reported that in 2022, Wikimedia generated $154 million in revenue and incurred $145 million in expenses.
In October, while sharing a photo of Wikipedia’s donation plea, Musk stated, “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia,” calling it “a stiff & firm offer.”
Meanwhile, a study conducted in June by the Manhattan Institute, a US-based conservative think tank, revealed that Wikipedia’s tendency to portray right-wing political figures negatively has started to influence AI large language models that utilize data from the online encyclopedia.
The report indicated that it found “prevailing associations of negative emotions with right-leaning public figures; and positive emotions with left-leaning public figures,” suggesting “evidence of political bias embedded in Wikipedia articles.”
Last month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also criticized Wikipedia, asserting that the encyclopedia provided one-sided and often biased interpretations of events in its historical and political articles, which “almost always reflect and exclusively Western-centric point of view and contain direct forgeries.”
Alejandro Jose Martinez for TROIB News
Elon Musk has confirmed that his offer to pay $1 billion for Wikipedia to change its name to “Dickipedia” is still on the table. The X owner initially made the proposal amid accusations that the encyclopedia has an embedded left-leaning bias.
On Tuesday, one X user recalled Musk’s offer, to which the billionaire replied, “True. Offer still stands.”
Earlier this year, Musk claimed that Wikipedia was “broken” and urged to “fix Wokipedia” amidst accusations that the website allows articles that label Republicans and US President-elect Donald Trump as “fascist” while promoting other left-wing narratives and painting the political right negatively. He stated that the encyclopedia is “controlled by far-left activists” and encouraged people to stop donating to it.
Musk has also raised questions about the Wikimedia Foundation’s requests for substantial amounts of money, arguing that “it certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia” because “you can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone.”
In response to these claims, the website previously clarified in a community note that while a text and English-only copy of Wikipedia is about 51GB, the complete encyclopedia, including all media and other languages, totals around 428TB. The organization reported that in 2022, Wikimedia generated $154 million in revenue and incurred $145 million in expenses.
In October, while sharing a photo of Wikipedia’s donation plea, Musk stated, “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia,” calling it “a stiff & firm offer.”
Meanwhile, a study conducted in June by the Manhattan Institute, a US-based conservative think tank, revealed that Wikipedia’s tendency to portray right-wing political figures negatively has started to influence AI large language models that utilize data from the online encyclopedia.
The report indicated that it found “prevailing associations of negative emotions with right-leaning public figures; and positive emotions with left-leaning public figures,” suggesting “evidence of political bias embedded in Wikipedia articles.”
Last month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also criticized Wikipedia, asserting that the encyclopedia provided one-sided and often biased interpretations of events in its historical and political articles, which “almost always reflect and exclusively Western-centric point of view and contain direct forgeries.”
Alejandro Jose Martinez for TROIB News
