The most retweeted tweet ever is a billionaire's giveaway of free money

Sorry, nuggets kid.
By Johnny Lieu  on 
The most retweeted tweet ever is a billionaire's giveaway of free money
Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has the most retweeted tweet of all time. Why? Money. Credit: DAVID MCNEW/AFP/Getty Images

Here's a sure way to make your tweet very, very popular: free money.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder of online fashion retailer Zozotown and funder of SpaceX's trip to the moon, promised in a tweet on Sunday to giveaway 100 million yen ($924,000) to be shared among 100 random people.

The competition was posted in celebration of Zozotown reaching 10 billion yen in sales, and the mechanism to win is pretty simple: All one needs to do to enter is follow Maezawa on Twitter and retweet the post. Maezawa said he would personally message the winners when the contest finishes.

As of Monday, the tweet has had more than 4.1 million retweets, becoming the most retweeted tweet in history.

The tweet eclipses the previous record of 3.5 million retweets, held by Carter Wilkerson who went viral attempting to receive a year's supply of free chicken nuggets.

While Wilkerson didn't reach the 18 million retweet target set by Wendy's, the fast food chain gave him the nuggets anyway.

Wilkerson's tweet beat a record previously held by Ellen DeGeneres, whose celebrity-filled selfie at the 2014 Oscars promptly blew up the internet at the time with a total of 3.3 million retweets.

Mashable Image
Johnny Lieu

Mashable Australia's Web Culture Reporter.Reach out to me on Twitter at @Johnny_Lieu or via email at jlieu [at] mashable.com


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