Cover image via Business Insider
A month after asking Wendy's — how many retweets to get a year's supply of free chicken nuggets — a teenager from Nevada, United States, has displaced Ellen Degeneres as the throne-holder of the most-retweeted tweet of all time
Image via Carter Vs Ellen
So what happened?
On 5 April, 16-year-old Carter Wilkerson, from Reno, Nevada, jokingly asked Wendy's as to how many retweets it would take to get free nuggets for a year.
Wendy's, which has a long history of leveraging Twitter to communicate with people, responded. The fast-food chain gave Carter an impossible task.
At that time, Carter, with 138 followers, was a nobody
And Wendy's [admittedly](https://twitter.com/Wendys/status/849998539107258368) thought that Carter wouldn't be able to do it.
After all, in the history of Twitter, at that point of time, Ellen's Oscar selfie held the world record for the most retweeted tweet of all time, at 3.3 million retweets. And that was achieved due to the star power Ellen and others wielded.
But then Carter tweeted the following:
And then the impossible happenend
Carter's followers count grew from 138 and he now has over 110,000 followers.
Twitter granted him with a verified badge and made a custom hashtag with emoji for the hashtag #NuggsForCarter, featuring a box of Wendy's nuggets.
His tweet went viral instantly, reaching more than a million retweets in just two days. His tweet also gained fame as Carter was mentioned in tweets by celebrities, politicians, other brands and strangers, all pitching it to get him his free nuggets.
T-Mobile's CEO John Legere even offered Carter more than just Wendy's nuggets.
While Carter was far away from the 18 million count, his tweet was rapidly getting closer to beating Ellen's epic selfie tweet. In the process, Twitter even kept count:
Soon it was over
While Carter didn't reach 18 million, breaking the record for the most retweeted tweet was enough for Wendy's
The fast-food chain has announced that it will give Carter his free nuggets and will also donate USD100,000 to The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
On his part, Carter is raising additional money for the cause on [his website](https://nuggsforcarter.com/).
