Why Is MAGA Setting Its Sights on Wikipedia?

The emerging coalition of MAGA supporters and Silicon Valley’s tech bros and venture capitalists has found a new shared target to set its sights on: the world’s largest free encyclopedia.

Elon Musk joined a growing chorus of right-wing voices in attacking Wikipedia this week, accusing the site of being inherently biased and urging his followers to “defund” the independent non-profit “until balance is restored.” Musk also dubbed the site “Wokepedia” in December after another X user posted a graph that showed 29 percent of Wikipedia’s operating budget had been spent on “equity” and “safety & inclusion.”

Joining Musk in his criticisms are venture capitalists Chamath Palihapitiya and Shaun McGuire, who have claimed that “Wikipedia lies” and that “Wikipedia has been ideologically captured for years.”

The gripe with Wikipedia appears to be borne out of the same complaints that these groups have with more traditional, mainstream news and information outlets. But while many of the conservative voices are lashing out at the encyclopedia over accusations that it favors the left, the more recent attacks from those like Musk and other tech oligarchies has “mostly to do with control,” Molly White, a software engineer and tech writer, told Newsweek.

“A lot of them really want to try to control their image online and are upset when something is written on Wikipedia that they don’t necessarily want highlighted,” White said Wednesday, adding, “They want to be able to control the narrative, to dictate how information appears online, and they are not able to do so on Wikipedia.”

Newsweek reached out to Musk through Tesla for comment.

Recently, Musk has taken particular issue with Wikipedia’s mention of the gesture he made Monday at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The site described the action as being “viewed as a Nazi salute or Roman salute by many.” Responding to a screenshot of Wikipedia’s description on X, formerly Twitter, Musk argued that because Wikipedia classifies legacy media outlets as reliable sources for the purposes of citation, the site “naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda!”

Joni Askola, a Finnish student who has frequently engaged in public spats with Musk on the social media platform, told Newsweek he thought it was ironic that while Musk and others like him declare themselves champions of free speech, they “only accept free speech that goes their way.”

Even more than controlling his own image, Musk is focused on having “as much influence as possible,” Askola said Wednesday, which includes ensuring that people get their information on X, the platform he owns.

White agreed that there are business conflicts of interests involved in the criticisms coming from tech executives. She said that many of these prominent figures have presented their businesses as an alternative to Wikipedia, “which certainly, if it were to materialize, could be enormously profitable for them.”

“Elon Musk wants Twitter to be the source of truth online,” White said. “He’s spoken at length about how he wants it to be where people get their news. He’s talked about how Community Notes on Twitter should be the world’s repository of information. So, I think some of it does come down to the fact that Wikipedia is almost a competitor to what he envisions Twitter to be, or wishes that it could be.”

But even if Musk were to create a successor to Wikipedia — which is one of the top-trafficked sites in the world with more than 240 million views a day — the information that’s being circulated may not be to his liking. Since taking over Twitter and rebranding it X, Musk has also launched a proprietary AI bot called Grok. Several users have pointed out that, when asked who the biggest spreader of misinformation on X is, Grok’s response is Musk himself.

As the world’s richest man, some might expect Musk to just buy, or attempt to buy, the media groups he has issues with. The billionaire floated buying MSNBC, an outlet he previously called “the utter scum of the Earth,” in November after Comcast announced it would pin off some of NBCUniversal’s cable television networks.

But Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has made clear that his site is not for sale.

Responding to Musk’s post about defunding Wikipedia, Wales said in a post on X: “I think Elon is unhappy that Wikipedia is not for sale. 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.”

Given Musk’s previous comments joking about contributing to Wikipedia if they made the changes he’s demanded, White, the software engineer, suggested that Musk or his allies in Silicon Valley could be serious. “If Wikipedia was for sale, they would be putting bids in so that they could shift the operations of the website and in ways that they want,” she said.

“But you can’t buy something that’s not for sale. And I think that’s frustrating to them.”