The Japanese billionaire who'll be Elon Musk's first paying passenger for a trip to the moon used his deep pockets to get the most retweeted tweet on all time over weekend.
Yusaku Maezawa, who was revealed as themystery SpaceX moon passenger back in September, had 4.8 million retweets as of Monday morning, crushing Carter Wilkinson's 2017 attempt to get a free one-year supply of chicken nuggets out of Wendy's.
The 43-year-old founder of online fashion mall Zozotown on Saturday tweeted that its New Year's sale raked in 10 billion yen (around $92,310,000) at the fastest pace ever and offered to split 100 million yen (around $924,000) between 100 randomly selected people who shared his tweet.
ZOZOTOWN New Year Sale is the fastest in history to exceed 10 billion yen in transaction volume! ! To express my gratitude, I will personally be giving away 1 million yen (a total of 100 million yen worth of New Year's gifts) in cash to 100 people. To enter, just follow me and RT this tweet. Reception is open until January 7th. I will directly DM the winners! #If you go to the moon, give it a New Year's gift pic.twitter.com/cKQfPPbOI3
— Yusaku Maezawa (MZ) Yusaku Maezawa (@yousuck2020)
‘With gratitude, I will give you 100 million yen [100 million yen grand price for 100 people] from individuals in cash. To apply, just follow me and just RT this tweet. Receptionist is up to 1/7. I will DM directly from winners!,’ reads his translated tweet .
On Monday, he tweeted his thanks to his followers for helping him achieve a retweet world record.
HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3
— Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm)
Maezawa had a major financial advantage over Wilkinson, a Nevada teen who surpassed Ellen DeGeneres' 2014 Oscar selfie with 3.6 million retweets after Wendy's told him he'd need 18 million to get free nuggets. Ellen's tweet was retweeted 3.3 million times.
If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow)
Electronics maker Sharp riffed on Maezawa's tweet with a humorous push for people to buy its products, as previously noted by Quartz .
‘With our gratitude, we would be grateful if many more than 100 people could buy 1 million yen of products (totalling 10 billion yen). The application method doesn't involve having to RT or follow us, you can just buy it from any store. Taking applications forever,’ the company wrote in Japanese .
Twitter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
