Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales doesn’t edit Donald Trump’s page because, frankly, the former president “makes me insane.” This blunt admission, made during a recent interview, reveals a deeper truth about the platform he built: maintaining neutrality in a polarized world is exhausting. Wales, unlike many tech billionaires, seems more interested in fixing his home Wi-Fi than schmoozing with power brokers. His new book, The Seven Rules of Trust, attempts to apply Wikipedia’s unlikely success to a society drowning in misinformation.
The core of Wales’s frustration is that Wikipedia works because of its messy, human origins. It’s not optimized for growth at all costs, yet it’s used by billions. This is both a miracle and a liability. Governments from Russia to Saudi Arabia target the platform, while conspiracy theorists treat facts as optional. Wales understands this hostility intimately.
The Problem With Trust Today
Wales’s perspective is simple: building trust is harder than keeping it. People are skeptical. You need to earn their faith, and even then, mistakes happen. Forgiveness requires that baseline trust, but the internet doesn’t offer it freely. This is why Wales refuses to edit the Trump page. His sanity is worth more than correcting a biased entry.
Wales admits he avoids online arguments about trans issues. Why? Because they’re “too toxic.” No point in engaging when the other side doesn’t care about facts. This pragmatism extends to his tech preferences. He trusts Wikipedia more than ChatGPT, a sentiment shared by anyone who values verifiable information. Reddit, surprisingly, gets his occasional lurking approval—because it still has paragraphs.
The Unintended Consequences of Open Access
The interview highlights a dark side of Wikipedia’s openness. Anyone can edit, which means anyone can contribute garbage. Katie Drummond, the interviewer, discovered she had a Wikipedia page thanks to obscure podcasts where she shared personal details. Wales doesn’t pretend this is ideal. It happens.
The platform’s growth isn’t glamorous. Scaling from zero to a $207.5 million annual budget involves “bad hires,” growing pains, and the constant tension between community spirit and professionalization. It’s messy, imperfect, and surprisingly scrappy for an organization that touches billions of lives.
The Future of Facts
Wales’s story is a reminder that building something useful in a broken world isn’t about optimization or monetization. It’s about resisting the forces that want to tear it down. His refusal to engage with Trump’s Wikipedia page isn’t just personal; it’s a statement. Some battles aren’t worth fighting. Some lines aren’t worth crossing.
“The problem is that if you enter the public eye, small podcasts will eventually turn your life into a Wikipedia entry. I’ve had experiences where journalists just took inaccurate info from the site and published it.” – Jimmy Wales
In a world where facts are optional, Wikipedia remains a fragile, defiant act of hope. It’s not perfect, but it persists. And that, perhaps, is enough.
