Elon Musk has always been a chaos agent, but over the last year he’s sure gotten worse. Since buying Twitter last November, he’s all but destroyed any good will an already always problematic place had accrued. It’s not been easy working with him, as the many people he’s fired can attest. And after trying to hash out details on a bizarre cage fight with him, Mark Zuckerberg can, too.
Zuck on Musk: you’re not a serious person. Not fighting. pic.twitter.com/kuTn558RZO
— Jay Yarow (@jyarow) August 13, 2023
On Sunday, some two months after agreeing to beat the crap out of Musk, Zuckerberg put a tentative end to what would have been one of the strangest fights since social media star Logan Paul squared off against Floyd Mayweather.
“I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on,” Zuck wrote on Threads. He continued:
“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. 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.”
The news comes after Musk had been stepping up his pre-fight antics. Late last week he claimed a date had been selected and that it would be randomly Italian-themed. Zuckerberg denied those claims. The Facebook/Meta honcho also shared a text that Musk asked him to do a “practice” fight in the Octagon the former had set up in his backyard to get ready for the big day. Zuckerberg shared this text exchange with bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson.
I got this text message from Elon Musk at 4:44am CT showing a screenshot of some text messages in which he tells Mark Zuckerberg they should fight this Monday at Zuckerberg’s home in Palo Alto. pic.twitter.com/krgRsH5P5G
— Walter Isaacson (@WalterIsaacson) August 13, 2023
Zuckerberg seemed to be taking the silly fight seriously. Already a Jiu-Jitsu champ, he trained even harder, amping up the calories so he could clobber his social media rival. Musk, meanwhile, kept hemming and hawing, much as he did with his protracted purchase of Twitter (now X, alas). But unlike the Twitter crew, Zuck doesn’t need Musk.