Jakub Porzycki/AP
The summer of 2023 could be remembered in several ways. Taylor Swift, apocalyptic smoke, record-shattering heat, Trump indictments. But it was also a time when, for a few short weeks starting in July, the world was forced to consider the possibility of a literal cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
It began after the latter billionaire boy suggested that he wanted to create a competitor to Twitter. (We know it’s called X or something now. But for the sake of sanity and clarity, I will refer to the company by its original name.) Musk, replying to a random user who brought up Zuckerberg’s newfound ju-jitsu hobbies, then tweeted, “I’m up for a cage match if he is,” kicking off weeks of back-and-forth, ever-escalating taunts. Somewhere in between, Zuckerberg followed up and created Meta’s Twitter competitor, Threads. Musk promised to donate any money generated by the fight to veterans. Zuckerberg trained with MMA fighters.
Now, the cage fight news cycle appears to have landed at its only inevitable conclusion: It’s not happening.
Zuckerberg’s acknowledgment that it’s “time to move on,” fortunately puts an end to the speculation. It’s particularly funny that it comes only days after Musk appeared to tease that the Colosseum was being seriously considered to host this mess. But why couldn’t the Meta CEO have moved on instead of engaging with the chaos of a man who had just paid billions to destroy a company? No, that would have required the self-knowledge to accept the fact that you’re even less popular than Donald Trump.
In any case, as summer draws to a close, I’m happy to report that the possibility of a cage fight between two billionaires is definitely—maybe— not happening. For now.
