Wikipedia co-founder may just have agreed with Elon Musk in his ‘first viral post in a few years’

Elon Musk has been vocal in his criticism of Wikipedia, accusing the platform of bias and even offering $1 billion to rename it "Dickipedia." Amid this controversy, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger asked the Tesla CEO to investigate which branches of the US government have employees who are paid to edit, monitor, update, or lobby on Wikipedia—and suggested that such departments should be defunded.

Hi @ElonMusk. Wikipedia co-founder here. May I ask you to determine what branches of the U.S. government—if any!—have employees paid to edit, monitor, update, lobby, etc., WIkipedia?Such operations should be defunded, if any. If there are *none*, we’d like to know. Agree?


In a follow-up post, Sanger said that Wikipedia is biased, the process is opaque and he left Wikipedia in 2022.

For people who don’t know me:- I left WIkipedia in 2002.- I have been a critic since 2004.- The Wikipedia process is almost as opaque to me as it is to you.- Yes it’s biased, I’ve said so for a long time. See my blog (http://LarrySanger.org).- I do http://Encyclosphere.org.

Musk wants people to stop donating to Wikipedia

Last year, tech billionaire Musk took aim at Wikipedia, accusing the platform of being “controlled by far-left activists” and urging people to stop donating. “Wikipedia is controlled by far-left activists. People should stop donating to them,” Musk said.

This isn’t the first time Musk has criticised the platform for alleged bias. In 2023, he launched a series of attacks on Wikipedia, even offering $1 billion to rename it “Dickipedia” while accusing it of having a “non-trivial left-wing bias.”

Responding to Musk’s remarks, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said, “I mean, he’s had a war of words with me; I just ignore him. So I didn’t really respond to that.”

Sanger’s request to Donald Trump

Sanger also requested President Donald Trump to get the ball rolling.

Hi, @realDonaldTrump—co-founder of Wikipedia here—could I persuade you to use an executive order to make it a policy that neither federal worker hours nor federal moneys may be used to edit Wikipedia or pay for Wikipedia editing?Thanks in advance. (I voted for you.)