Let’s speak about the delayed martial arts match between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk today — perhaps for the last time — and the latter’s rash threats to visit the Meta CEO at his home and broadcast it to the public.
Part of me is hesitant to spill any more ink on a war that no part of me expected to happen. Last week, I wrote about the significance of treating Musk’s posts on X, the former Twitter, with skepticism and encouraged my colleagues in the press to consider not covering them at all. Musk clearly seeks attention for the sake of attention, and considering that so many of his promises have fallen through, ignoring him frequently feels like the smartest option.
At the same time, despite his efforts over the last year to decrease it, Musk remains the owner of one of the most famous social networks. He is also the co-founder and CEO of several other well-known firms, including Tesla, Neuralink, and SpaceX, which operates the Starlink service, which provides internet access in Ukraine and more than 60 other countries.
All of this is to suggest that I believe it is important if such a person appears to be losing his hold on reality. And after a few more days of erratic conduct, I’m not sure what else you might fairly conclude about Musk.
II.
When we last left off, Zuckerberg had planned a fight with Musk on August 26th. But Musk refused, claiming that he required an MRI and would need surgery first.
That seemed to settle the matter for the time being — until Musk posted a new set of fictions on Friday.
He resurrected the fantasy that it would take place in Rome, in an unidentified but “epic location,” and promised that “the fight will be managed by my and Zuck’s foundations (not UFC),” as well as that it will be televised on both the X and Meta platforms.
As previously stated, Zuckerberg had not agreed to any of this. Among other things, giving the battle out for free would result in significantly less money generated for charity. For Meta, raising money for charity is a crucial public-relations excuse for doing the match at all — otherwise, it’s just two rich tech guys arguing, and we get enough of that from quarterly earnings calls.
Musk took things to an outrageous new level on Saturday. “Wanna do a practice bout at your house next week?” he texted Zuckerberg. We know this because Walter Isaacson, Musk’s biographer, tweeted a snapshot of the chat yesterday. (I verified that the texts are genuine. Although I’m not sure what a “practice bout” means in this context – does Musk want his opponent in the fight to also be his training partner?)
In any scenario, Zuckerberg said no. Musk, however, ignored his response. “I will be in Palo Alto on Monday,” he said. “Let’s have a fight in your Octagon.”
Zuckerberg had had enough at that time.“I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on,” he said in a thread on the site. “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.”
Musk, on the other hand, did not move on. Instead, he made a series of posts on Monday about unexpectedly visiting Zuckerberg’s home in Palo Alto. “Knock, knock… challenge accepted… open the door @finkd,” he said, referring to Zuckerberg’s previous Twitter handle. And, because it had been a few days after Musk had mentioned his 52-year-old balls on social media, he added, “Thought you might want some tea, so I brought the bags.”
Musk upped the ante two hours later, stating he would drive a Tesla to Palo Alto on Monday night and livestream the journey on X, “so you can monitor our adventure in real-time! If we get lucky and Zuck … actually answers the door, the fight is on!”
For the Tesla FSD test drive in Palo Alto tonight, I will ask the car to drive to @finkd’s house.
Will also test latest X livestream video, so you can monitor our adventure in real-time!
If we get lucky and Zuck my 👅 actually answers the door, the fight is on!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2023
All of this felt blatantly phony, like so much of what Musk has said about the fight. For starters, Musk’s plane touched down in Cleveland earlier Monday. Two, Zuckerberg was nowhere to be seen.
“Mark is traveling right now and isn’t in Palo Alto,” said Meta spokesperson Iska Saric on Monday. “Also, Mark takes this sport seriously and will not fight someone who shows up at his door by chance.”
III.
We’re all familiar with the type of edgelord behavior Musk is displaying here: making a threat — “I’m coming to your house to fight you” — but doing it in such a way that, if questioned, he can throw his hands up and claim it was all a joke.
Nonetheless, as the Washington Post’s Drew Harwell pointed out, Musk’s behavior appeared to break his platform’s rules in the same way that he accused journalists of doing during last year’s controversy over the @ElonJet account, which tracked Musk’s activities on Twitter before Musk cancelled it. (Musk allegedly claimed that the plane was broadcasting his “assassination coordinates.”)
Surely, recording oneself driving to Zuckerberg’s house to confront him would be an equally terrible offense. (Perhaps more problematic, given that @ElonJet reported a multi-hour delay and most people don’t have direct access to airport tarmacs.)
The hypocrisy here, while unsurprising, is nevertheless astounding.
To be clear, Zuckerberg is not in bodily danger from Musk – and not simply because Musk, according to his own admission, has barely trained for a battle. More importantly, due to very genuine threats to Zuckerberg’s and his family’s safety, Meta will spend $14 million on security for him this year. Musk will be more at risk than Zuckerberg of Musk turning up at the door if he relies on his Tesla’s “full self-driving” capabilities on US 280.
Again, what matters here is not whether or not an MMA bout goes happen. It’s that the world’s richest man — someone with a security clearance, government contracts, and a lot of clout over Ukraine’s continued internet access — has threatened to track down a competitor CEO and challenge him to a duel at his home.
X might delete These kinds of posts from the platform for breaking its community standards, if it had any.
All of this will undoubtedly appear to his diminishing fan base as more swaggering derring-do from their real-life Iron Man. But I wonder whether his employees, investors, family, and friends don’t perceive something odd, and darker going on.
For the rest of us, it’s just another cringeworthy sideshow on the way to X’s demise. And here’s another example of Musk as that most recognizable figure: the loud forum shitposter, perpetually printing checks with his words that his body can’t cash.
Please stay connected with us on techyember.com for more articles and recent news.
