Two of the world’s richest and most influential men, who happen to run rival social media networks, seemed to push each other into agreeing to a fight, leaving their platforms abuzz with the idea of a “cage match” between the billionaires.
Elon Musk, who regularly posts jokes and provocations on Twitter, which he bought last year for $44 billion, responded this week to tweets about a potential competing service from Meta, run by Mark Zuckerberg, by saying, “I’m in for a cage match as he is.
On Instagram, Meta’s social network, Mr. Zuckerberg with a screenshot of Mr. Musk and the caption “Send Me Location”.
It went on from there, in a prominent demonstration of the defiant, belligerent tone of Silicon Valley’s “bro” culture, though social media sparring has rarely, if ever, reached the physical world.
A spokeswoman for Meta said Mr. Zuckerberg’s response “speaks for itself”. Twitter’s media agency automatically responded to a request for comment with a poop emoji.
Last summer, Mr. Zuckerberg said he started Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Since then, he’s posted about his training several times, including images featuring pro fighters like Dave Camarillo and Mikey Musumeci. Last month, Mr. Zuckerberg competed in his first Brazilian jujitsu event, in Woodside, California, where he defeated an Uber engineer to win two medals.
Mr Musk said, “I hardly ever train.” He suggested to keep the fight on an arena in Las Vegas.
More than in other industries, technology leaders are known to embrace conflict in public forums, says Katy Cook, author of “The Psychology of Silicon Valley,” which described the industry as a “male-dominated, emotionally primitive” environment where leaders have been rewarded for displays of hypermasculinity.
“Getting a taste of power through some of those behaviors tastes good to a lot of people,” said Dr. Cook.
The two moguls have a history of butting heads — rhetorically, not physically — on big topics in their industries. Mr. Zuckerberg invited Mr. Musk to dinner at his home in 2014 to convince him that he was being too alarmist about the threats posed by artificial intelligence. Mr. Musk did not change his mind and continued to warn about the dangers of AI. Mr Musk has said that Instagram “makes people depressedand that Facebook, also owned by Meta,give me the willies.”
