Billionaire Elon Musk has offered to pay Wikipedia one billion dollars on the condition that the website changes its name to “Dictionary.”

Photo: Yahoo News
Photo: Yahoo News
Elon Musk, owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, wrote about the offer in a post on his website. Musk cited an earlier post with a screenshot of a statement from Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales saying the site was “not for sale.”

Musk wrote: “I will give you a billion dollars if you change your name to Dickipedia.”

When one user, journalist Ed Krassenstein, told the online encyclopedia to accept the offer and said the company “could always change its name again after receiving money from Musk,” Musk immediately responded that the site should retain the name. for a minimum of one year.”

“At least a year. I mean, I’m not an idiot,” Elon Musk said.

This suggestion from Elon Musk stems from a previous tweet in which he criticized the Wikimedia Foundation for wanting too much money. He said: “It certainly doesn’t take much to work with Wikipedia. You can literally copy the entire text onto your phone. So what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know that.”

The Wikimedia Foundation later issued an explanation through its own Community Notes, explaining that the free information organization handles “more than 25 billion page views per month and more than 44 million site edits each month, which requires significant operating costs.” The note also provides additional context that the Wikimedia Foundation uses external financial auditors to publish reports.

This is not the first time that billionaire Elon Musk and Wikipedia have clashed. In May, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales criticized Musk for his decision to restrict certain content on X ahead of the Turkish presidential election.