Elon Musk is urging people not to donate to Wikipedia following its $50 million diversity initiatives.
The Tesla owner is making his message loud and clear for people not to give money to the nonprofit behind Wikipedia - or as he calls it, 'Wokepedia.'
The reasoning he states is that the organisation spent over $50 million of its $177 million 2023-24 budget on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
In his own words, Musk wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority.”
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This tweet was in response to a post uploaded by the ‘Libs of TikTok’ account who shared a pie chart showing that 29% of Wikipedia’s 2023-2024 budget went toward equity, safety, and inclusion efforts.
According to the Wikipedia Foundation's own goals, $31.2 million is allocated for equity initiatives and $20.5 million for safety and inclusion.
Additionally, $86.1 million was spent on infrastructure while $39.2 million went on effectiveness.
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The nonprofit justified its efforts, saying: “Supporting equity represents the second largest part of our programmatic work, with grants and Movement support representing the majority of the budget within the equity goal.” According to a report by the Manhattan Institute titled ‘Is Wikipedia politically biased?’ the site has a ‘mild to moderate tendency…to associate public figures ideologically aligned right-of-centre with more negative sentiment than public figures ideologically aligned left-of-centre’.
Criticism of Wikipedia’s funding priorities was quick to spread online in response to Musk's post.
"WIKIPEDIA BLOWS $50M ON WOKENESS," one user wrote.
“Turns out nearly 30% of Wikipedia’s budget last year went to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. That’s $50 million for DEI instead of, you know, improving the actual site.
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They added: “Critics are calling it ‘Wokepedia,’ accusing the platform of prioritizing ideology over function. “Meanwhile, the internet’s collective eye-roll is almost audible.
“Sure, inclusion is nice, but maybe they could use some of that money to ensure they're a reliable source of information first? Just a thought.”
Musk reposted the tweet, adding: “Where your donation to Wikipedia goes.”
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Even Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia's co-founders, has expressed the limitations and biases of the platform.
Interestingly, he claimed that ‘nobody should trust Wikipedia’, arguing that it has an army of left-leaning volunteers who control content to fit their political views. “Can you trust it to always give you the truth?" Sanger questioned. "Well, it depends on what you think the truth is.”