Cage fight plans between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk go cold

Mark Zuckerberg has said he is ‘moving on’ from a rumoured cage fight with Elon Musk, claiming the Tesla boss ‘isn’t serious’.

The rival billionaire tech bosses seemingly agreed to a brawl in June when Musk posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he was ‘up for a cage fight’.

Zuckerberg, the Chairman and CEO of Meta, took a screenshot of Musk’s post, replying ‘send me location’.

However, on Sunday, Zuckerberg said on social media platform Threads: “I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on. I offered a real date. [UFC boss] 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.”

Musk, the Chairman of X, appeared to suggest the fight would be held in an ‘epic location’ in Italy. He outlined streaming options and an ancient setting for the proposed event, claiming he had spoken to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

“If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me. Otherwise, time to move on. I’m going to focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously,” added Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg is trained in mixed martial arts, posting about completing his first jiu-jitsu tournament earlier this year.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

Tensions have been high between the two tech billionaires’ companies after Meta launched Threads, a text-based conversation app similar to X, in July.

X sent a cease-and-desist letter to Zuckerberg after the launch, claiming Meta had made ‘unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property’.

Musk said last week he was training for the fight against Zuckerberg by lifting weights. He posted on X: “Don’t have time to work out, so I just bring them to work.”

The Tesla owner may be too busy with a new foray into the data centre industry, with the automotive company hiring for a Senior Engineering Program Manager to lead ‘the full design and engineering of Tesla Data Centers from concept to launch’.

Hungry for more tech news?

Sign up for your weekly tech briefings!