Yusaku Maezawa's tweet has been shared over five million times

A Japanese billionaire’s tweet has become the most retweeted message in history.

According to the BBC, a tweet sent by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has become the most retweeted tweet ever.

On 5 January 2019, Maezawa, the founder of Japanese online clothing retailer Zozo Inc tweeted that he would share 100m yen between 100 random retweeters.

“To participate, all you have to do is follow me and RT this tweet,” he said. The tweet was in celebration of his website Zozotown making 10bn yen in sales over the Christmas and New Year period. Maezawa has a personal wealth of close to $3bn.

The Japanese entrepreneur’s tweet has since been shared over five million times, beating the Carter Wilkerson’s tweet to Wendy’s asking for a year’s supply of free chicken nuggets. Wilkerson’s tweet has been shared around 3.5 million times, quite short of Wendy’s 18 million criteria for free nuggets.

Maezawa is also known for being the first private passenger to be flown around the Moon by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX when the service launches. Although the price of the ticket remains undisclosed, Musk said it was “a lot of money”.