What’s more popular than chicken nuggets on the internet? A cash giveaway.
A tweet by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder and CEO of Japan’s largest online fashion retailer Zozotown—and the man who will go to the Moon with Elon Musk in 2023—posted on Saturday (paywall) promising to dole out ¥100 million ($920,000) in cash to 100 people who follow his account and retweet his post by today (Jan. 7) is now the most shared tweet ever on the social network. As of local time this afternoon, the tweet has been shared over 4 million times.
Maezawa’s tweet is now more popular than the previously most retweeted one ever, a plea in 2017 by a Nevada teenager to get free chicken nuggets from Wendy’s for a year contingent on him getting 18 million retweets. That tweet has over 3.8 million retweets. Actor and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres’s 2014 selfie with a bunch of celebrities while hosting the Oscars is the 3rd most retweeted.
The Japanese entrepreneur announced his giveaway as a way of saying thanks to customers after Zozotown’s New Year’s sale reached ¥10 billion yen at the fastest pace ever, he said. His tweet was hashtagged “a New Year’s gift for going to the moon.” Maezawa tweeted (link in Japanese) his thanks for setting a new world record for most retweeted tweet ever this afternoon local time.
In response to Maezawa’s tweet, electronics maker Sharp—itself known in Japan for putting out unusually irreverent and humorous tweets—said: “With our gratitude, we would be grateful if many more than 100 people could buy ¥1 million of products (totalling ¥10 billion). The application method doesn’t involve having to RT or follow us, you can just buy it from any store. Taking applications forever.”
This post has been updated with Maezawa’s latest comments.