The World record for Twitter Retweets has been broken

A Japanese billionaire has set a new world record on Twitter, with a post from Saturday, January 5 becoming the most retweeted tweet of all time.

The tweet was posted by Yusaku Maezawa, who is the founder of Japanese online clothing retailer Zozo Inc, although the businessman first became famous in his homeland as the drummer of a punk band called Switch Style.

Maezawa came to the attention of western media in 2018, when he paid to become the first private passenger to be flown to the Moon by Elon Musk and SpaceX, a trip which is set to take place in 2023.

Maezawa will become the first private passenger to fly to the moon on a SpaceX craft.

While the Japanese businessman is well known, it was an incentive included in his tweet that propelled his post to the top of the record books, with anyone who retweeted it eligible to win a cash prize from Maezawa himself.

Posted in Japanese, the tweet appears to celebrate Maezawa’s Zozotown website earning 10 billion yen over the holiday season, and the founder offered to share 100 million yen ($925,000; £725,000) among 100 people, selected at random, who shared the tweet.

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People were clearly excited to be in with a shot at winning some cash, with the tweet being retweeted over 3.8 million times by hopefuls at time of writing.

Maezawa’s tweet has surged into top spot in the list of most retweeted posts, surpassing American Carter Wilkerson’s tweet from May 2017.

The teenager had asked fast food chain Wendy’s how many retweets he would need to earn free chicken nuggets for a year, with Wilkerson eventually hitting 3.5 million retweets, but falling well short of the 18 million the franchise had stated.

Wendy’s did give him free nuggets for a year as a reward for his efforts, but he’ll no longer be able to boast about having the most retweeted post on the platform.