Japanese billionaire gives S$1.25m to 100 random people who followed & retweeted him

Wow what.

Tanya Ong | January 08, 2019, 04:31 PM

Yusaku Maezawa, founder of Japan's second-largest online shopping site Zozo Inc., decided to give away money to 100 random followers who retweeted his tweet.

That tweet now holds the world record for the Twitter post with the highest number of retweets.

Giving away money

In a tweet on Jan. 5, Maezawa announced that he would be giving away a total of 100 million yen (approximately S$1.25 million) to 100 lucky followers who retweeted his tweet by Jan. 7.

That works out to about S$12,500 per person.

He mentioned that this gesture was to express appreciation for all his customers following Zozotown's exceptional new year sales.

His tweet also included an image of a man on a rocket silhouetted against a full moon, supposedly in reference to Maezawa being introduced as the first passenger on a flight to the moon scheduled for 2023.

This is his viral tweet, which has received over 5.5 million retweets:

Surpassed previous record of most retweeted tweet

Maezawa's tweet has well surpassed the previous record for being the most retweeted Twitter post.

The previous record was held by college student Carter Wilkinson who received over three million retweets:

Has already chosen winners

On Jan. 8 morning, Maezawa announced that he was in the process of picking the lucky winners.

Winners were notified through a Twitter direct message.

And in a tweet at 11.54am, he said that all winners have been chosen and notified:

Another contest to come?

Given the popularity of the giveaway, the rich Japanese man said that he is considering doing this again.

He has also invited Twitter users to participate in a poll regarding the type of prize they would prefer:

1 winner, winning 100 million yen

10 winners, winning 10 million yen each

100 winners, winning 1 million yen each

1000 winners, winning 100,000 yen each

Wow.

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Top photo via Yusaku Maezawa's Instagram & screenshot of tweet.