World’s New Most Popular Tweet Retweeted 3 Mn+ Times. Here’s Why

Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said he’d pay 100 million yen for sharing his tweet, which then became a record holder.

Japanese billionare Yusaku Maezawa. 

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@yousuck2020)

Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionare and the founder of Japan’s second-largest online store Zozo Inc, now holds the record for having the most retweeted tweet ever.

Through his tweet, Maezawa announced that he will give out 100 million yen (approximately Rs 6,45,03,043) to 100 ‘lucky’ people who retweet his post. Hoping to be one of the randomly chosen winners, Maezawa’s audience retweeted his post 3.8 million times, giving it more than 900,000 ‘likes’.

This most-retweeted tweet featured a picture of a man on a rocket silhouetted against a full moon. It looks quite similar to the famous image from the movie E.T.

“To participate, all you have to do is follow me and RT this tweet,” Maezawa tweeted on 5 January.

“Zozo town Spring Sale is the fastest in history and has topped 10 billion yen! As an appreciation, I will give 100 million yen in cash. The only way to apply is to follow me and RT this tweet. The reception is up to 1/7. I will direct DM from me to the winner!”

Yusaku Maezawa tweeted (as transalated by Twitter)

Maezawa was relatively unknown outside Japan, and this one tweet changed it all overnight.

Before Maezawa, the record-holder for highest number of retweets was American college student Carter Wilkerson. His goal was to get a year-long free supply of chicken nuggets from the fast-food franchise, Wendy’s. His tweet was retweeted 3.58 million times with 990,000 likes.

Before Wilkerson, Ellen DeGeneres’s 2014 Oscars selfie, with Hollywood stars Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, etc, was the top tweet with 3.3 million retweets.

Do you feel inspired enough to set a new record now?