The battle lines have been well and truly drawn across the United States of America, and you only have to look at the guest list of President Donald Trump's inauguration to see this in action. Controversial figures such as Joe Rogan and the Paul brothers were in attendance, while the tech industry united under the returning POTUS.
While Trump has had various spats with the likes of Zuckerberg and Bezos over the years, they’ve fallen into line under his promise of a 'golden age' for America. Even Elon Musk has a tumultuous history with Donald Trump, once being at each other's throats but now being his self-titled 'first buddy'.
Back in 2016, Musk said he didn't think Trump was fit to run the country, and despite being appointed to an economic advisory council during Trump's first term, he left the role in June 2017.
Advert
Although Trump and Musk are on much better terms, the world's richest man continues to make another powerful enemy.
After Musk's Wikipedia page was updated to include a reference to the controversy surrounding a gesture at Trump’s inauguration celebration, it didn't take long for the X CEO to share a charged post that read: "Defund Wikipedia until balance is restored! Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority."
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales responded to a repost of Musk's comments and added: "I think Elon is unhappy that Wikipedia is not for sale.
Advert
"I hope his campaign to defund us results in lots of donations from people who care about the truth.
“If Elon wanted to help, he'd be encouraging kind and thoughtful intellectual people he agrees with to engage." This was accompanied by a donation link for Wikipedia.
Wales and Larry Sanger founded Wikipedia back in 2001, and with it being free to use, it relies heavily on donations to stay afloat.
This isn't Wales' first run-in with Musk. Speaking at 2023's Web Summit in Lisbon, Wales was asked what he thinks about Large Language Models (LLMs) using Wikipedia data to teach chatbots and boost its content instead of stuff you'd find on X. As well as feigning ignorance and saying he'd 'never heard' of X's Grok, Wales mused: "I’m pretty happy that they’re reading Wikipedia and not just Elon Musk’s Twitter. It’s not really a great source of truth."
Advert
Like Musk's troubled timeline with Trump, his squabble with Wikipedia is ongoing. In October 2023, he offered $1 billion if Wales changed its name to 'Dickipedia'. Wales then told CNBC that Musk's leadership of X is a 'huge problem', saying the platform had been overrun by 'trolls and lunatics'.
Following the latest fracas, Wales spent time addressing the replies to his volley against Musk. He fought back against accusations that Wikipedia is 'biased' and suggestions it should add a community note-inspired system like Musk controversially did with X.
Advert
It doesn't sound like Wales has any intention of turning Wikipedia into the next X, firing back at one critic and concluding: "It isn't going anywhere, and it isn't ridiculously biased, and if you want to improve it, I'm here with open arms for anyone kind and thoughtful who wants to engage."
Musk has yet to respond, but something tells us that this is one feud that won't be dying down anytime soon.