- Elon Musk has made Wikipedia his latest public target.
- The billionaire has taken umbrage with how the website explained his controversial “salute.”
- However right-wing voices online had turned against Wikipedia last year in December.
Problem machine Elon Musk has turned his ire towards what is believed to be largest collection of free information to have ever existed in human history. Wikipedia, lambasting the website on his social media platform to the adulation of his followers.
In a series of posts on X, Musk alleges that Wikipedia is biased against him, quote tweeting another post that calls the online encyclopedia “an extension of legacy media.” The post shares a screenshot from the website, simply stating that Musk made a gesture that was “compared to a Nazi salute or a fascist salute.”
Since legacy media propaganda is considered a “valid” source by Wikipedia, it naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda! https://t.co/lwQlM51FRX
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2025
Followed by “Musk denied any meaning behind the gesture.” Despite sharing two different viewpoints is a cornerstone of unbiased reporting, the billionaire has decided that since Wikipedia uses online articles as sources, it must be “legacy media propaganda.”
In another quote tweet, Musk agrees that Wikipedia is biased against people on the far-right political spectrum because the words “political extremism” are included in more paragraphs included in far-right pages and terms than in far-left.
Defund Wikipedia until balance is restored! https://t.co/CIszNP5Pvc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2025
He calls for the defunding of Wikipedia, which is a non-profit organisation supported by donations and the work of volunteers. If Musk actually read his Wikipedia page, which – lets face it, he probably has several times – he would have seen that the situation around the “salute” is explained using numerous sources, including himself.
It also quotes the Anti-Defamation League which said that Musk did not do the Nazi salute but “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm” and then the Associated Press saying that “that regardless of what Musk meant, his salute was widely embraced by right-wing extremists.”
We have also seen these reactions to the situation. However, the right-wing attack against Wikipedia is not new. Instead as recently as last year December, right-wing-leaning voices on X have been rallying against the platform calling it “wokepedia” and calling for people to stop donating to the platform.
It seems Musk is simply jumping on the next right-wing bandwagon to appease his followers, as he has been for the last two years after noted conservative account Libs of TikTok alleged that Wikipedia was spending $50 million of its budget on “Diversity, Equity an Inclusion.”
Wikipedia’s annual budget report from 2023—2024 reveals that they spent over $50 million of their total $177 million budget on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Stop donating to Wokepedia pic.twitter.com/bGYsCIzy9L
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 23, 2024
This is however, not the case according to the annual plan that the account did not link, or users would have been able to see what Wikipedia was using the money for actually.
In the case of Safety and Inclusion, the website says it will “Defend our people and projects against disinformation and harmful government regulation” and ensure that volunteers and contributors are safe from external threats, such as social media users.
While its goals on Equity are actually about “knowledge equity” where the website will try and get more people of diverse backgrounds to write and add knowledge on topics that would apply to them.
For example, Wikipedia wants to work towards getting more editors from Sub-Saharan Africa to work on articles about the region which it says is “historically underfunded.” It will also try to get more women to contributed to articles about women and women in literature.
Basically, since more men than women contribute to Wikipedia, the website wants to do more to get women to contribute more often which actually helps make bias go away because there are more sources and more opinions.
To answer the initial question: Why is Musk all of a sudden going after Wikipedia? Because his followers have been turned against the platform through a series of context-less claims as they believe that Wikipedia is bias against conservative politicians and pundits.
