Billionaires’ Brawl: Musk-Zuckerberg's seven-year beef could potentially end with a knockout in the Colosseum

It’s hard to be ignorant of the brewing of a potential cage fight between Tesla and Twitter chief Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg if you have been active on the internet lately.

To the uninitiated, the conversation started when Zuckerberg announced the launch of Meta's "rival" platform to Twitter, 'Threads'. But, the rift between the two start back in 2016.

In early June 2023, Chris Cox, CPO, Meta, called Threads “our response to Twitter,” in a companywide preview meeting. Meta began working on a Twitter-like platform, then named ‘Project 92’, three months after Musk acquired it, according to reports.

Mario Nawfal of IBC group reported this development on Twitter. To this, Musk replied “I’m sure Earth can’t wait to be exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options.” Further, Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a “cage fight”.

Meta CEO took a screenshot of Musk’s call out and said “send me location” on his Instagram story. Musk tweeted "Vegas Octagon '', Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) premier fighting cage or ring. 

It could have been dismissed as just another social media banter till then. But, things heated up further. A Meta spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that Zuckerberg is intent on taking up Musk's challenge to a cage fight.

UFC president Dana White is looking at booking the fight between the tech billionaires. MMA media has reported that White has a date in mind for both of them to square up in the cage.

He has started promoting the fight as well, going as far as selling t-shirts hyping the matchup.

Shortly after the bout was mutually agreed upon, Meta launched its text based conversational platform Threads.

Upon its launch, Zuckerberg took to Twitter for the first time in over 10 years and posted a meme of two Spidermen pointing at each other. 

Musk launched a series of tirades on Zuckerberg on July 9 as soon as Threads started picking up on.

The initial momentum for the platform, however, was short-lived as it lost half its active users within a week. Amused by this, Musk took to Twitter again:

The feud, however, doesn’t solely stem from Meta launching a rival platform. Musk and Zuckerberg had worked together in 2016.

A SpaceX rocket was supposed to launch a Facebook satellite in space. But, the rocket exploded during launch and destroyed the Facebook satellite with it.

To the news, Zuckerberg responded, “I'm deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed our satellite.” 

The feud escalated next year when Zuckerberg spoke at a Facebook Live. A user asked him about Musk's warnings about artificial intelligence. Musk believed that AI had potential capabilities of being more dangerous than nuclear weapons back then.

To this, Zuckerberg responded, "People who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios, I just don't understand it," he said. "It's really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible."

To this Musk responded, "I've talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited."

In the following year, Musk logged off from Facebook, saying “What’s Facebook?”. He then deleted SpaceX’s page from the platform as well. Musk continued to take shots on Zuckerberg’s Facebook in 2020.  “#Deletefacebook It’s lame,” Musk said. 

The exhibition fight

The future of the exhibition fight continues to be uncertain but both of the tech businessmen have been seen preparing for the fight with martial artists.

Zuckerberg was recently spotted training with UFC champions Alexander Volkanowski and Israel Adesanya. Meanwhile, Musk was seen training with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Lex Freidman, UFC vet Georges St Pierre. 

Drumming up the anticipation for the showdown, Musk tweeted  that there is "some chance" that the fight will happen in Rome's Colosseum.

Reports say Zuckerberg and Musk would reportedly "love" to have their fight at the Colosseum. Italy's minister of culture is also in contact with UFC's White to further discuss the possibility.