As of 11:24AM on Tuesday, May 9th, a tweet by 16 year-old Carter Wilkerson, from Reno, Nevada, broke the world record for the most retweeted tweet ever, at 3,441,701 retweets, beating the previous record of 3,430,751 by a tweet from Ellen Degeneres. Best of all, Carter will be getting his nuggs, as well as over $100,000 to charity.
On April 6th, Carter accepted a challenge from Wendy’s official Twitter account to get a year’s supply of free chicken nuggets if he gets 18 million retweets. He then posted a screenshot of the exchange, commented “HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS.” The tweet then went viral, hitting a million retweets in just one day, two million on Monday, April 10th. On April 13th, Ellen Degeneres announced on her show that Carter was getting dangerously close to beating her world record, and that anyone who retweets Carter’s tweet should also retweet hers, so that she would stay ahead. Alas, the tweet hit three million retweets on Monday, April 17th, before finally hitting 3.441 million on Tuesday, May 9th.
At this time, Wendy’s posted a tweet saying “.@carterjwm is now the most retweeted tweet of all-time. That’s good for the nuggets, and $100k to @DTFA. Consider it done. #nuggsforcarter,” followed by a tweet from Guinness World Records saying “Congratulations to @carterjwm who just broke @TheEllenShow’s record for most retweeted tweet on @Twitter #NuggsForCarter.” But the chicken nuggets weren’t the only reward. During his campaign, he sold t-shirts, with all the profits going to Moms on the Run, a non-profit breast cancer organization based in Reno. In addition, Wendy’s donated $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, another non-profit organization which aims to find homes for kids in foster care across the U.S. and Canada.
Although Carter won his nuggets, he isn’t done yet. After beating the world record, he posted that he was going to keep the fundraiser up, and is hoping to eventually reach the 18 million retweets, or five percent of all active Twitter users, that he originally strived for.
