Yusaku Maezawa/YouTubeThe age old question of whether or not money can actually make a person happy could well be about to be answered, thanks to an exceedingly generous billionaire.
Japanese shopping tycoon Yusaku Maezawa is about to divvy out more than one billion yen (around $9 million) among 1,000 lucky Twitter users as part of a ‘serious social trial’ to see what impact this would have on their life and happiness.
Those chosen will receive around one million yen each (approximately $9,100), which they may use however they like. The only thing they needed to do was retweet Maezawa, making this potentially the easiest January bonus of all time.
🎍謹賀新年🎍
【総額10億円】#前澤お年玉 100万円を1000人にプレゼントします！
100万円で皆さまの人生がよりハッピーになりますように。
応募方法は僕のフォローとこのツイートのリツイート。締切は1月7日23:59まで。
企画趣旨や当選条件などはYouTubeで説明してます。 https://t.co/kBgwwmJoaP pic.twitter.com/1Fr0Vq4i6Z
— Yusaku Maezawa (MZ) 前澤友作 (@yousuck2020) December 31, 2019
Sadly, if you’re currently rushing to Twitter to try your luck, the competition closed at midnight on January 7. However, 1,000 people are about to get a very happy start to the New Year. Over four million hopefuls retweeted Maezawa, with the winners set to be determined by a lottery.
Maezawa will reportedly notify winners by sliding into their DMs within the next two to three days. And can you even imagine how delighted you would be if your were handed a lovely big wad of cash in the midst of what is objectively the bleakest and longest month of the year?
Maezawa will also keep in contact with the winners after the lottery draw, in order to figure out exactly if and how the windfall has transformed their lives.
As this is a social experiment, winners have been urged to answer regular questionnaires about what they’ve chosen to spend their money on. Maezawa has also called for social scientists to help him analyse the results of his findings.
Yusaku Maezawa/YouTubeIn a series of subsequent tweets, Maezawa discussed the importance of basic income, and the need to introduce basic income in Japan:
Basic Income is a mechanism by which the government pays a fixed amount to the citizens every month.
[…] This campaign may be a reference for the government to consider basic income and any benefits and subsidies. While discussions and experiments on basic income are being conducted around the world, some experimental results should be needed here in Japan as well.
As reported by CNN Business, Maezawa pulled the exact same stunt in January 2019; pledging 100 million yen (around $914,000) to be shared amongst 100 people.
This tweet proved record breaking, with 4.68 million retweets making it the most retweeted ever at the time.
Yusaku Maezawa/YouTubeAs reported by Business Insider, Maezawa is well known for his own opulent splurges.
Having previously splashed $57 million on a Basquiat painting, the extraordinarily wealthy businessman has already reserved every single seat on SpaceX’s maiden flight around the moon.
If you retweeted Maezawa in good time, then I currently have all my fingers and toes crossed for you.
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Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.