Why This Japanese Billionaire is Giving Away $9M to His Twitter Followers

Can money buy happiness? This Japanese billionaire is trying to find out.

Online fashion mogul Yusaku Maezawa is giving 1 billion yen — that's around $9million — to his twitter followers. All they have to do is retweet him.

The 44-year-old announced on Twitter on New Year's Eve that a lucky 1,000 people would divvy up the money, landing just over $9,100 each.

In a video explaining the contest on YouTube, he revealed the competition was part of an experiment to see what sort of impact 1 million yen could have on a person's life.

He told the eventual winners to use the money "as they like", and only asked in return that they answer a questionnaire about their spending afterwards.

A lottery will determine the winners; Maezawa said he would personally contact each one to inform them of the good news.

His tweet has been retweeted 4.1million times.

As the creator of Japan's biggest fashion retail site Zozotown, Maezawa is with around $1.8billion, making him the country's 17th richest person.

As well as a musician and high-end art collector, he also holds the record for most ever retweets, having pulled a similar stunt last year; that time he offered $100million yen, but only to 100 winners, in a tweet that was shared over 4,680,000 times.

And now for the bad news: the deadline for the new contest was one minute before midnight... on January 7.

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