Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg fight may not be a joke – 7/3/2023 – Sport

The day after Elon Musk’s challenge to Mark Zuckerberg on social networks for a “cage fight” – something like a fight in a cage–, in June, Dana White, president of the UFC, received a text message.

It was from Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta. He asked White, who leads the world’s premier MMA competition, which is fought in cage-like rings, if Musk was serious about a fight.

White called Musk, who runs Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX, and confirmed that he was willing to stand up. The top hat then relayed this information to Zuckerberg. In response, the Facebook boss posted on Instagram: “Send me the location”, a reference to the catchphrase of Khabib Nurmagomedov, one of the UFC’s most awarded athletes.

If you thought a fight between two of the richest men in the world was just an over-the-top social media stunt, think again.

Over the past 10 days, White said he, Musk and Zuckerberg — with the help of aides — have negotiated behind the scenes and are getting closer to physical combat. While there are no guarantees the fight will take place, the broad outlines of an event are forming, White and three people with knowledge of the discussions said.

The fight would be an exhibition match, the top hat said, and outside the UFC’s official jurisdiction and rights agreements, although he helped produce the event. Tech leaders agreed there should be a charitable component, said White and a person familiar with the talks, with details still being worked out. The preferred venue is Las Vegas, which requires approval from the Nevada Athletic Commission. On Thursday (29), Musk tweeted that the event could also take place at the Roman Coliseum.

Zuckerberg’s friends and advisers were generally supportive of the duel, according to two people close to him, although others said a fight would be a distraction and not the best use of their time. A person close to Musk said that while he hated sports and didn’t seem to have the discipline to train regularly, nobody could rule anything out with him.

If the showdown between Musk, 52, and Zuckerberg, 39, happens, it would be a rare spectacle, even in the bragging universe of the tech industry. While Steve Jobs and Bill Gates used to goad each other, the closest the tech world had before this to actual sports rivalries was between sailing billionaires like Oracle’s Larry Ellison and SAP’s Hasso Plattner.

But two extremely wealthy tech titans wrestling, punching and kicking in an arena in Las Vegas or Rome? Nobody would have dreamed of it.

Meta declined to officially comment. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

Zuckerberg and Musk have long fluctuated between being competitors, friends and sworn enemies. The two have been at odds with each other over the years, including over Musk’s SpaceX rockets, Meta data privacy scandals, and more. More recently, Zuckerberg sent a team at Meta to build a competitor to Musk’s Twitter, codenamed Project 92.

If they take their rivalry beyond these teases, White said he had concerns about the physical differences between the billionaires. In addition to the 13-year age difference, Musk is said to be at least 32 kg heavier than Zuckerberg. In official MMA fights, athletes are usually matched by weight.

“There are two guys who have never fought professionally, and they’re in two completely different weight classes,” White said. Still, he said, “It will be the greatest fight in combat sports history.”

Zuckerberg is especially familiar with the UFC world. Over the past 18 months, he has embarked on a personal journey to gain muscle mass and has delved deep into Brazilian jiu-jitsu, a grappling martial art in which competitors try to subdue their opponent and which is used in UFC fights.

The Facebook owner started training for fun in 2021, mostly in his garage, where he built what he called a mini gym, with a group of friends who fight with him. He said he appreciated that Brazilian jiu-jitsu required “100% focus” and strategic thinking to defeat an opponent rather than brute force.

Zuckerberg reached out to martial arts experts including Dave Camarillo, James Terry and Khai Wu. In May, he competed in his first public martial arts tournament in Redwood City, California, where he attended in disguise – right up until the moment he took off his hat and sunglasses to fight. He won gold and silver medals in the challenge.

Musk, on the other hand, tweeted that he “almost never” works out and once suffered a back injury that required surgery after participating in an exhibition with a sumo wrestler. Last month, he said he was versed in “judo, Kyokushin (full contact)” — two Japanese martial arts — and “street fighting without rules.”