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Elon Musk takes aim at Wikipedia
(www.newsweek.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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Enough Musk Spam
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Yes $2,335,918 in 2019 per their disclosures. They spend more on travel expenses.
Wikipedia is a non-profit. The goal shouldn't be to rake in tons of cash.
Legal fees and legal staff take up much of their expenses as well. When you have a platform that aims to make truth public, you are getting threatened with lawsuits 24 hours a day.
~~Legal fees were $493,315 for the fiscal year ending in 2023. Web hosting expenses were $3,120,819. They spent more on travel and conferences than both these combined ($4,180,219). Also, they pay their CEO more than all legal expenses.~~
I would really like to see Wikipedia become fully self-sufficient, so it can't be threatened by a hostile takeover. They could do that through investment income without ever touching their principal, especially if they started reasonably managing expenses years ago.
Edit for accuracy: so, earlier I totally misread the only paragraph with "legal" mentioned in last financial disclosure (here). There's no other mention of legal directly, so it must be lumped in with one of the other expense buckets. Maybe part of "professional service expenses" at $15,464,635?
That’s legal fees meaning court filing and other fees (seems low). You also have professional legal services, which includes specialized lawyers, in-house attorneys, and the General Council, which consists of board-level executives with legal credentials.
Why should non-profits not want to "rake in tons of cash" if it helps advance the mission of the non-profit?
Because in this case, all the increases in contributions go straight to the executives. I think I've been very on-point with this. On most days, I would expect Lemmizens to be overwhelmingly anti-CEO. I guess this isn't one of those days.
789k was pay + severance for Katherine Maher who left in 2021. Now that does seem excessive, I don't know how that number came about or why severance was 600k but the year before Katherine's comp was 406k. The compensation for the current CEO is 534k for 2023 per https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/200049703
Of course that seems like a lot of money, and it is, but to put it in perspective, I am just another software engineer and I make more than that. In HCOL areas, at "big tech" it's common for entry level SDEs with a BS to make 160-180k.
So as I stated in a different comment, your criticism seems misplaced. What you have a problem with is really the financial situation our society is dealing with, and that's perfectly reasonable. I would 100% agree that current wealth/pay distribution needs to be addressed.
I'm not going to disagree with your comments in regards to the compensation for the singular CEO. However, I think this is a more widespread issue within the foundation. (I did say "executives" in my last comment.) The chart below is straight from the Wikimedia Foundation wiki page and one expense category is increasing a lot quicker than the others. This chart is a little outdated now, but salary expenses have continued to increase. According to the last disclosure, salaries and benefits are now over $101-million. That's almost double where the chart left off, all while other expense categories have barely moved. Internet hosting in 2023 was only $3.12-million.
Wikimedia has a lot of cash on hand. Even with the exorbitant spending over the years, the foundation and endowment combined have accumulated over $400-million. Through interest alone, I don't see why the core functions of Wikipedia should ever be in financial jeopardy. This is especially the case if you consider that, even without persistent requests for donations, donations won't just stop completely.