Easy to See Why Billionaire's Tweet Is Now Most Retweeted

A Japanese billionaire has now claimed the honor of having penned the most retweeted tweet ever. But once you hear what he wrote, it's not that surprising. Yusaku Maezawa's Jan. 5 tweet offered to split 100 million yen (that's about $925,000) among 100 people, reports the BBC. "To participate, all you have to do is follow me and RT this tweet," he wrote. As of this writing, it's been retweeted more than 4.9 million times, handily taking the crown from the previous record-holder: Carter Wilkerson, whose plea to the Internet to retweet his post so he could win free Wendy's chicken nuggets for life racked up 3.55 million retweets.

Those numbers won't continue to climb forever, however: Quartz reports the retweet period ends at Monday's close. As for Maezawa's motivation, the BBC reports his giveaway is apparently a "celebration" of sorts: He owns the online clothing store Zozotown, which reeled in 10 billion yen in holiday shopping. TechCrunch reports the high-profile Maezawa had one big leg up on Wilkerson in terms of grabbing retweets: The latter man started his quest with just 138 followers. (Maezawa grabbed headlines for a very different reason in September.)