Elon Musk says he’s ‘up for a cage match’ with Mark Zuckerberg. It’s the latest jab in a nearly 7-year feud between the two CEOs.
By: Posted: June 27, 2023
Susan Walsh/AP; Erin Scott/Reuters
- There’s no love lost between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
- The CEOs have been feuding since 2016, when a SpaceX explosion destroyed a Facebook satellite.
- Since then, they’ve butted heads repeatedly. Now they’re threatening to face off in a cage match.
For over six years, two of techs biggest names — Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg — have been caught up in a feud, clashing over topics like artificial intelligence and rockets.
The two men have been griping about each other behind closed doors for years, according to The Wall Street Journal. But the tech moguls haven’t exactly kept their rivalry a secret from the public, either.
When a rocket from Musk’s SpaceX exploded and destroyed a satellite from Zuckerberg’s Facebook in 2016, Zuckerberg issued a heated statement, saying he was “deeply disappointed” about SpaceX’s failure. And when Facebook became embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Musk publicly deleted his companies’ Facebook pages, tweeting that the company gave him “the willies.”
Most recently, the two men have threatened to make their fight physical and face each other in a cage match.
The two billionaires are among the richest people on the planet, placing them in an elite circle, even by Silicon Valley standards. Even though both dabble in artificial intelligence and social media, and their companies have partnered in the past, it seems there’s no love lost between Musk and Zuckerberg.
Here’s where their feud began and everything that’s happened since.
Launch Report/Handout via REUTERS
In September 2016, SpaceX was testing its Falcon 9 rocket at a launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Shortly after 9 a.m. the rocket exploded, destroying Facebook’s AMOS-6 satellite, which was supposed to ride the rocket into space.
The satellite was part of Facebook’s Internet.org project to deliver internet connectivity to the developing world, and it would have been Facebook’s first satellite in orbit.
Zuckerberg seemed openly frustrated that the launch failed, writing on Facebook that he was “deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent.”
Two years later, Musk addressed the failed launch in a tweet to the reporter Kerry Flynn.
“Yeah, my fault for being an idiot,” Musk said. “We did give them a free launch to make up for it, and I think they had some insurance.”
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
During a Facebook Live broadcast, a viewer asked Zuckerberg for his thoughts on Musk’s anxieties around AI.
“I have pretty strong opinions on this,” Zuckerberg said. “With AI especially, I’m really optimistic, and I think that people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios … I don’t understand it. It’s really negative, and in some ways, I actually think it’s pretty irresponsible.”
Musk, who has repeatedly called for regulation and caution when it comes to new AI technology, shot back on Twitter.
“I’ve talked to Mark about this,” he said in response to a tweet about Zuckerberg’s comments. “His understanding of the subject is limited.”
Source: Insider
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
After the WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton tweeted, “It is time. #deletefacebook,” Musk responded, “What’s Facebook?”
A fan responded to Musk’s tweet asking whether he’d delete the SpaceX Facebook page, to which Musk responded, “I didn’t realize there was one. Will do.”
After another fan pointed out that Tesla had a Facebook page too, Musk tweeted that it “looks lame anyway.”
Soon after, both the SpaceX and Tesla pages disappeared from Facebook. Musk said it wasn’t a “political statement” and that he just found Facebook unsettling.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2018
Source: Insider
Andrew Harnik/AP
In response to a tweet from the actor Sacha Baron Cohen, which called for more regulation of Facebook, Musk urged people once again to delete the app.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2020
Source: Insider
Maja Hitij/Getty Images
On the evening of the rampage in Washington, Musk tweeted, “This is called the domino effect,” along with an image of dominoes, with the first one labeled “a website to rate women on campus,” a reference to Facebook’s inception at Harvard University. The last domino referenced the rioters.
Musk also criticized Facebook’s data-sharing practices, tweeting another meme about Facebook that mentioned the company “spying” on users following the announcement by Facebook-owned WhatsApp that it would start forcing users to share their personal data with the platform.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2021
Musk tweeted that people should “use Signal,” an encrypted messaging app. His tweet was retweeted by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, another tech executive who has sparred with Zuckerberg.
Source: Insider
Kevin Dietsch/Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images
The Tesla CEO compared Zuckerberg’s control of Meta to a monarchy during an interview at the TED conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Facebook’s parent company changed its name to Meta in October 2021.)
The interviewer, Chris Anderson, asked Musk whether his status as the richest man and one of Twitter’s top influencers could pose a conflict of interest if he bought the platform. Musk used the opportunity to take a swipe at his rival.
“As for media sort of ownership, I mean, you’ve got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities,” Musk said.
He went on to say that he “won’t have that at Twitter.”
Source: Insider
Jonathan Raa/Getty Images
In December, Meta first brainstormed ideas for a Twitter competitor in order to capitalize on Musk’s chaotic Twitter takeover, according to a report from The New York Times. The company confirmed to Platformer in March that it’s working on its own text-based social network, codenamed “Project 92.”
Earlier this month, Meta’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, appeared to mock Musk and Twitter by saying in an all-hands meeting that it the site will be “a platform that is sanely run.”
Sources: The New York Times, Platformer, Insider
Erin Scott/Reuters
The billionaire has been taunting Zuckerberg on Twitter about his rival text-based social media platform.
“I’m sure Earth can’t wait to be exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, he tweeted “Zuck my” with a tongue emoji.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2023
Source: Twitter
Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
On an episode of “The Lex Fridman Podcast,” the Meta CEO praised Musk’s “push early on to make Twitter a lot leaner.”
“I think that those were generally good changes,” Zuckerberg said.
When the Tesla CEO took over Twitter, he more than halved the company’s workforce. Zuckerberg has taken similar cost cutting measures at Meta, initiating a series of layoffs and dubbing 2023 the “year of efficiency.”
Sources: “The Lex Fridman Podcast,” Insider, Insider
Getty
People who have heard each man’s private comments about the feud told The Wall Street Journal that Zuckerberg had long yearned for the public recognition Musk has received over the years as a tech pioneer and that Musk has fretted over Zuckerberg’s early success with Facebook.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Mark Zuckerberg on Instagram and Getty
Last week, Musk said he’d be “up for a cage match” with Zuckerberg.
The Twitter owner brought up the idea after a Twitter users cautioned him to be careful dissing Zuckerberg since he knows jiu-jitsu.
It’s unclear whether Musk was joking about the offer to fight the Meta CEO in a cage match. He said on Wednesday via Twitter that “If this is real, I will do it,” but later appeared to poke fun at his own fighting skills.
Zuckerberg appears to be taking the idea of a match seriously. After Musk first tweeted that he would be “up for a cage fight,” the Meta CEO posted a screenshot of the tweet on Instagram with the words “Send me location,” and a Meta spokesperson later told The Verge that Zuckerberg is not joking about the offer.
Only time will tell if the two CEOs will duke it out in person.
Some people have already begun placing odds on the fight. Insider’s Hasan Chowdhury reported that Musk’s chances of beating Zuckerberg are slim. 39-year-old Zuckerberg has been training in MMA fighting and recently won some medals at a jiu-jitsu competition.
Source: Insider
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