I wonder if he didn’t have his family’s money, could he have been successful?
Elon Musk Offers to Also Ruin Wikipedia
Submitted 1 year ago by Gork@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
badaboomxx@lemmy.world 1 year ago
MeanEYE@lemmy.world 1 year ago
When you have 1M$, making another one is easy. That first one is hard though.
c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s also really easy to lose the first 1 mil.
floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
These wealthy entrepreneurs think they’re brilliant risk takers, but overlook the fact that what would be a huge risk for most people is not much of a risk for them.
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I think the connections were more important than the money. Reliable sources are hard to come by, but by all accounts he and his dad hate each other. Some accounts say he stole thousands of dollars from him, but it was likely less than a million that he was able to get. Moreso got lucky and had good connections so sell things.
badaboomxx@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You have a great point there.
null@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Oh look, another article giving him the attention he sp craves.
Can we just not?
gregorum@lemm.ee 1 year ago
As much as it sucks, this is newsworthy. Not taking him seriously is how Twitter got ruined.
null@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
It’s really not. Him making a serious offer and then actually having to buy Twitter was notable tech news. Him musing about Wikipedia is not.
rbits@lemm.ee 1 year ago
No, cause Wikimedia wouldn’t let him buy it in a million years
SharkAttak@kbin.social 1 year ago
We're pointing and laughing, that's different.
null@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
How do you point and laugh at something without giving it attention?
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I mean arguably its moreso giving Wikipedia the attention it craves and deserves and can materially capitalize up the ass. Sorry, this is one Elon Musk Show episode I can get behind. Its for the public good even if his intentions are inverse to that. Wikipedia is way fucking bigger than Elon Musk imao
PlexSheep@feddit.de 1 year ago
Just a heads up, you can download all of wikipedias Text in a couple Gigabyte iirc. So we could easily “fork” and mirror it.
yoz@aussie.zone 1 year ago
DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA TODAY
SeriesOfTubers@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Wikipedia does not appear to be in any danger of running out of money: dailydot.com/…/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/
I think it’s a good thing they have an endowment to give the site more financial security, but… how big does it need to be before they stop the begging advertisements? They’ve already far outpaced the goal they set in 2016.
yoz@aussie.zone 1 year ago
Lol WTF! After reading the article, I need a refund. They also started a for-profit? SMH
Grant_M@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Authoritarian DICKtator muskovite having a tantrum.
ours@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Out of context, your comment may sound somewhat childish but this all started with Elon’s comment:
“I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia.”
Cheems@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Please for the love of whatever you hold dear, do not touch that website
PlexSheep@feddit.de 1 year ago
If my 5€ donation from last year has any power, I will veto this.
DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This does lend credence to the “He’s intentionally tanking Twitter” theory.
RushingSquirrel@lemm.ee 1 year ago
To the contrary, he’s trying to say what he made on Twitter has more credibility than Wikipedia.
affiliate@lemmy.world 1 year ago
we should make wikipedia into an everything app
Desistance@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Let the clown wring his hands over something he can’t control.
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 1 year ago
Stop giving this asshat free publicity for stupid shit, ffs.
CosmicSploogeDrizzle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Unrelated but your account is labeled as a bot account for me. Might want to check your settings.
SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Omg that’s a setting? I never knew!
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 1 year ago
Thanks mate, didn’t realize I had both Bot Account and Show Bot Accounts selected. Fixed. Big thanks!
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
He’s right! By my calculations if we all stop free publicity for Musk his publicity costs necessary to cover for the loss of free publicity will easily bankrupt him by 4045. Who will be laughing then Musk?!
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 1 year ago
You sound like someone that preheats the microwave.
nixcamic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So he says he’ll give them a billion dollars if they change their name to dikipedia. As someone who has donated to Wikipedia in the past I’m 100% in favor of this move.
Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
I agree. Then change it back after the check clears.
Liz@midwest.social 1 year ago
With Musk you shouldn’t do anything until after you get your money. Musk must pay in advance.
wabafee@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I agree, changing the name won’t change that much, more money for dikipedia I mean Wikipedia.
alienanimals@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Downvote Musk spam.
The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring him and his businesses stay in the 24 hour news cycle. Don’t be a useful idiot.
Eheran@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I agree. Why do these people go crazy over this pile of shit?
null@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
And there’s really no excuse here. Musk actually buying Twitter was arguably a notable tech story. Him musing about Wikipedia is decidedly not.
EatMyPixelDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
This guy seriously has the mentality of a three year old.
Beetschnapps@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Don’t mistake intent for ability. Elon doesn’t feel cost or expense, he’s that rich. So while we can all laugh at the money it takes to wreck the communication platform called twitter, a person so rich could be doing exactly what they want; silencing and platforming anyone they choose, while swaths of people can be silenced or deplatformed for Saudi investors all while Elon muddies the waters of “free speech”. The cost is what we laugh about but consider the actions of someone who could dump that money for their own political ends and at the end of the day their feet still haven’t touched the ground.
It’s not a surprise if he were to eyeball Wikipedia and the thought should be a terrifying.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I set up a monthly donation to Wikipedia last night as a result.
snake@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I downloaded Wikipedia last night as a result.
bcron@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Was this an offer or was this Elon Musk pandering to the 6 year old bully demographic? It’s hard for me to tell because it’s been 30 years since I’ve seen someone swing this much weight to try to make a dick pun at someone else’s expense
rustbuckett@lemmings.world 1 year ago
This sounds awesome! Just think what it will do for the fediverse! Is anyone working on a decentralized Wikipedia yet?
Iapar@feddit.de 1 year ago
Why should someone decentralize Wikipedia?
Jomega@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Wikipedia is a non-profit that exists for the betterment mankind. It already embodies the spirit of the fediverse, and has before the fediverse had existed as a concept. There’s no reason to burn it down for the sake of rebuilding it. Not to mention that Elon would do so much damage in the time it takes to get a working site off of the ground.
rustbuckett@lemmings.world 1 year ago
It’s created from publicly created content, which is great and was a revolutionary move. It embodies not just the fediverse ideal, but the original purpose the internet itself. I use it almost daily and I even make a small monthly monetary contribution to keep it going. But, afaik, it’s still centrally hosted and managed. All I’m saying is decentralize it so that Musk has nothing to “buy” or whatever he’s trying to do.
trash80@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Has he ever built anything?
frostinger@lemmy.world 1 year ago
he defo be flexin’ with them mad dumps he be droppin’ on the throne
BrownianMotion@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Okay. We will change our name to dickipedia, give us the billion dollars.
musk hands over
dickipedia changes name to muskipedia
muskipedia changes name to wikipedia
New Wikipedia no longer needs to ask for donations.
CatradoraSomething@lemm.ee 1 year ago
isn’t wikipedia just lying when it asks for donations
Kovukono@pawb.social 1 year ago
I’ve heard that and decided to look myself. According to their fundraising report for fiscal year 2021/22, they received $165.2m from 13m people. Removing “major gifts,” $20.8m (only 18,000 people), it comes out to a bit over $11 per person. Additionally, they got $13.5m to their trust, the Wikimedia Endowment (average donation of $13.91/person). So definitely, most of their income comes from small donations.
As to whether they need it, according to their FY 21/22 financials statement, they’re sitting on $198m in assets ($51m of which is cash), with an additional $52m they can’t touch because they’re long-term investments. However, their expenditures made up $154m. In total, they’re reporting they netted $8m last year for additional assets, but assuming that everyone stopped donating, Wikipedia would probably die in a year, even with liquidation of short-term assets.
prole@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Where would you even have heard such nonsense?
DeadNinja@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I am waiting for the day when governments will have had enough of him (unless he bought those governments because that fucker is fucking rich) - and “Elon Musk” becomes “Felon Musk”.
bigkix@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I love with when lefties experience mental breakdowns over Musk. This thread is gold.
ColdWater@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Keep sucking Elon’s dick, good for you
bigkix@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You mean your ex-hero, the savior of the world, who became enemy no. 1 the second he bought Twitter? Sure, bro… Idgaf about Musk, just lefties hating him all of the sudden after worshiping him is funny af.
Send_me_nude_girls@feddit.de 1 year ago
Wikipedia should’ve agreed. Imagine for minimum a year, the whole world opening Wikipedia, gets reminded on the clown Elon Musk, every few days.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 1 year ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In the middle of a wave of rampant misinformation, excessive hate speech, and endless harassment, X owner Elon Musk set his sights on Wikipedia.
Not to be outdone by his own tweet, Musk immediately followed it up with a challenge: “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia.”
Beyond its status as the largest and “most-read reference work in history,” Wikipedia has long been heralded as a product of both massive fundraising and an internet full of people obsessed with very specific things.
Earlier this month, Musk called the internet encyclopedia “wokipedia,” after co-founder Wales criticized rampant misinformation on X.
(An October report from NBC found that the Community Notes program has allowed known war misinformation to thrive on the platform unchecked for hours.)
For Rauwerda’s own purposes, right now that includes the description of zoo animals as celebrities in 19th-century American news and a serial defecator in Colorado nicknamed the Mad Pooper.
The original article contains 772 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch 1 year ago
Summary is missing some context here. The article is an interview with Annie Rauwerda.
Behind the X owner’s trolling is a years long obsession with the internet’s favorite encyclopedia, Depths of Wiki creator Annie Rauwerda tells Rolling Stone
Then later
But much of Musk’s consternation with the popular site appears to be less about its features and more about his inability to control what it says about him. Rauwerda, creator of Depths of Wikipedia, one of the most popular Wikipedia-focused accounts online, tells Rolling Stone that Musk’s focus seems to be coming from a man obsessed with encyclopedias — who’s still unable to bend the world’s most popular one towards his will.
figaro@lemdro.id 1 year ago
Unchecked for… Hours?
Hours??
That’s fucking amazing that they can get it down so fast! Honestly they should advise Facebook or something on how to not leave misinformation up for years. Hours is actually incredible.
CouncilOfFriends@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
PeregrinoCinzento@lemmy.pt 1 year ago
Fuck no
Breezy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Take the money then we would just call it the site formerly known as wikipedia. Similar to how x is simply formerly known as twitter.
penquin@lemm.ee 1 year ago
He wants to fit 425TB of content on his phone. Man is a fucking genius. I love how his own platform is calling out his bullshit 😂
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You can actually get all of English Wikipedia for the low, low price of like >= 130GB
penquin@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I was talking about the whole Wikipedia with all of its languages. If you look at the beginning of the article where they mentioned they Elon “implied” and had a line under it. That’s a link to one of his tweets that was fact checked by the community on Twitter. That’s where I got the 428TB number.
RGB@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
😜 😅 😂 Let him be mad!!!
RGB@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
it is an engine ;0]
slurpeesoforion@startrek.website 1 year ago
We need a real life Trading Places where Elin ends up under a bridge or in prison.
PeleSpirit@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Does he have a billion dollars to spend right now? He’s already lost at least 30 billions of twitter.
xkforce@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Hes down 200 billion due to other stocks tanking so its much worse than that
PeleSpirit@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This is probably a distraction from the DOJ going after Tesla for possibly being a death trap anyway.
kakes@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I’m sure this isn’t credible, but:
www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=63510bfb7999
Credible or not, the guy certainly isn’t searching his couch cushions.
PeleSpirit@lemmy.world 1 year ago
He’ll never be poor financially, even if he went to jail. Trump on the other hand, probably the same, lol. His followers would give him money.
gregorum@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Net worth ≠ has that money to spend. You can be worth Y amount yet have very little actual cash depending on the circumstances. Of course, you could also borrow the money depending on how much collateral you put up.