Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, admitted to joking about the widely anticipated cage fight with fellow business magnate Mark Zuckerberg, culminating in another indirect battle of words between the two.
Musk confronted Meta CEO Zuckerberg following escalating tensions between the two business titans when Zuckerberg launched the new Meta programme Threads in July.
The new Meta software became a competitor to Musk’s social networking site X, formerly known as Twitter.
In response to Musk’s original challenge to Meta’s owner, Zuckerberg commented on Instagram, “Send me the location.”
In response, the owner of X accused Zuckerberg of allegedly declining the challenge.
Musk said on X (previously Twitter), “Fight Recap: I joked on X about fighting Zuck, and Zuck then asked “SEND ME LOCATION.” Italy generously provided a Colosseum. I recommended Zuck’s house as a “safe space” but he declined. Unfortunately, he was “trotting.” Is there someplace he will fight?”
Earlier on Sunday, Zuckerberg appeared to have backed down from the fight in a cryptic message.
In a Threads post, he stated that he will “focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously.”
“I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on. I offered a real date. Dana White offered to make this a legit competition for charity. Elon won’t confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead,” he said in the post.
This didn’t go down well with Musk, who took to X and threw some jabs at his tech rival. “Zuck is a chicken,” Musk posted.
As per Variety, the Meta and X/Twitter CEOs first sparked conversations about a potential MMA-style cage match in a series of back-and-forth messages on their platforms. Musk kicked off the exchange while replying to a June 20 Twitter thread where he wrote, “I’m up for a cage match if he is lol.”
Musk said on Twitter that the “Zuck v Musk fight” would be live-streamed on X, with all proceeds benefiting charity. “Shouldn’t we use a more reliable platform that can actually raise money for charity?” Zuckerberg said to Musk on Threads, taking a sly jab at X/Twitter.
