Elon Musk Urged People to Stop Donating to Wikipedia. Here’s Why
Calling the free online collaborative encyclopedia “Wokepedia,” Musk said it should “restore balance” to its “editing authority.”
As the end of 2024 approached, dozens of people on the internet claimed that tech billionaire Elon Musk had urged people to stop donating to Wikipedia, the free online collaborative encyclopedia. For example, a user posted on BlueSky on Dec. 26 (archived):
The claim appeared several times on BlueSky as well as on Reddit.
Indeed, Musk did ask that people cease donating to Wikipedia — or, as he called it, “Wokepedia” — because of its supposed ideological bent (archived):
In his post, he shared a post by the far-right account Libs of TikTok, which said that the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that operates Wikipedia, had spent more than $50 million of its $177 million budget in 2023-24 on “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” a concept organizations use to recognize the value of people from different backgrounds and create fair practices. Conservative politicians and groups have taken aim at DEI, arguing that it fosters discrimination of white people. The account backed its claim with a pie chart, which had genuinely been published by the Wikimedia Foundation as part of its annual budget report.
However, Libs of TikTok misinterpreted the chart, because the way the Wikimedia Foundation defined equity and inclusion differed from a standard DEI philosophy as applied within U.S. organizations. For example, under “Equity,” the organization said it seeks to create “new collaborative structures” with “regional and thematic hubs.” It has divided the world into eight regions and will seek to acquire new volunteer editors from regions of the world that don’t historically access Wikipedia. In terms of themes, it vowed to refocus on education, heritage and gender. Among such initiatives, the organization underscored the expansion of the number of biographies of women or the addition of content that women search for.
The organization also outlined its overarching goal under “Safety and Inclusion:”
Protect against growing external threats.
Defend our people and projects against disinformation and harmful government regulation. Work across the Movement to Provide for the Safety of Volunteers.
In other words, it vowed to implement guidelines to protect its content from creeping disinformation and to keep its volunteers safe from harm. This mission does not fall under a classic DEI agenda.
Further, the posts of Musk and Libs of TikTok betrayed a misunderstanding of the Wikipedia editing process. In reality, Wikipedia editors are volunteers who write or edit articles in full transparency, following an ever-growing set of self-imposed rules. This method of editing gives way to disagreement: Editors correct one another repeatedly, sometimes to the point of starting “edit wars,” a list of which is the topic of one Wikipedia article. The parent organization does not influence the content by imposing an editorial line. Contrary to Musk’s assertion, there is no “editing authority” at Wikipedia.
