Ever wanted to watch two tech billionaires beat each other up? Like The Hunger Games but in reverse? Now’s your chance. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has just accepted a challenge from Twitter’s owner Elon Musk to hash out their differences in that most respectable and appropriate of public arenas—a cage fight.
It all started when news dropped that Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company for Facebook and Instagram, is working on an alternative platform to Twitter called Threads.
“I’m sure Earth can’t wait to be exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options,” Musk tweeted, to which one of his followers replied: “Better be careful… I heard he does jiu jitsu now.”
“I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk continued. And Zuckerberg soon answered the call, posting a screenshot of the Tweet on his Instagram story along with the caption: “Send Me Location.” Musk then responded with “Vegas Octagon,” which is, of course, the site of Ultimate Fighting Championship.
It’s unclear just how serious Musk was in his challenge, as he posted a later tweet seemingly joking: “I have this great move that I call ‘The Walrus,’ where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing.” This is also the same guy who, in 2022, challenged none other than Vladimir Putin to “single combat” on Twitter, to no avail.
Zuckerberg, on the other hand, seems more than ready to step into the octagon. He regularly shares clips of his martial arts workouts to Instagram, sparring with pro fighters like Khai “The Shadow” Wu. Earlier this year he even won a medal at a jiu jitsu tournament.
Shortly after Musk threw down the gauntlet on Twitter, Zuck posted another Instagram Reel, this time of himself doing drills with submission wrestling jiu jitsu champion Mikey Muscemi. Zuck can be seen practicing different submissions, including an arm bar and triangle choke, on Muscemi, before shifting over to gloves and sparring with kicks to tease his “MMA debut.”
The proposed grudge match has already, as was inevitable, become a widespread meme online—but those in the know say it’s no joke, and will actually be happening.
“I was talking to Elon and Mark last night, both guys are absolutely dead serious about this,” UFC president Dana White told TMZ. “Because they both said, ‘Yeah we’ll do it.’ They both want to do it. Mark Zuckerberg hit me up first and said, ‘Is he serious?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, let me ask.’ I asked him and he said, ‘Yeah, I’m dead serious.'”
Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the United Kingdom covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ+ issues. His work has appeared in GQ, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller and MTV.
