10 May 2017•Update: 10 May 2017
By Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO
A teenager broke the record for most retweeted tweet on Tuesday a little more than a month after he asked fast food chain Wendy’s for free chicken nuggets.
On April 6, Carter Wilkerson asked Wendy’s via Twitter how many retweets he needed in order to receive unlimited chicken nuggets for one year. The company quickly said Wilkerson needed 18 million, to which Wilkerson, with the handle @carterjwm, exclaimed, “Consider it done.”
Wilkerson was retweeted more than 3.5 million times just 33 days later, becoming the author of the most retweeted tweet in Twitter history. The previous record holder, with 3.4 million retweets, was a photo taken by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres at the 2014 Academy Awards that featured a crowd of movie stars.
Although he has not yet reached the 18 million mark, Wendy’s agreed to supply Wilkerson with his chicken nuggets and donate $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (DTFA), a non-profit launched by Wendy’s late founder to find homes for foster children.
“@carterjwm is now the most retweeted tweet of all-time,” Wendy’s tweeted. “That’s good for the nuggets, and $100k to DTFA.”
