SpaceX, Twitter, and electric car maker Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. (Mandel Ngan and Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images)
Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the owners of competing social media platforms, could soon get into a cage match if their talk on social media is to be believed.
Zuckerberg—who co-founded Facebook and whose Meta Platforms Inc. owns Instagram—has reportedly been preparing a new social media platform to compete with Twitter.
Musk, who bought out Twitter in October, knocked the idea of Zuckerberg expanding his presence in the social media industry.
“I’m sure Earth can’t wait to be exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options,” Musk tweeted.
“Better be careful @elonmusk I heard he does the ju jitsu now,” another Twitter user replied.
Indeed, Zuckerberg, 39, has been training in the Japanese martial art of jujitsu. Last month, the social media mogul took to Instagram to tout his gold and silver medal wins at his first jujitsu tournament.
Musk, who turns 52 later this month, was apparently undeterred by his social media rival’s martial artistry.
“I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk wrote on Twitter.
Zuckerberg: ‘Send Me Location’
Word of Musk’s cage match proposal eventually found its way to Zuckerberg, who answered to the challenge in a post on his Instagram story.
“Send Me Location,” Zuckerberg wrote next to a screenshot of Musk’s cage match proposal.
Mark Zuckerberg responds to a cage match challenge from Elon Musk. (Screenshot via Mark Zuckerberg's Instagram Account)
Musk just continued to up the ante in his challenge, writing “Vegas Octagon.”
Dueling Social Media Empires
Zuckerberg played a major role in the formation of Facebook and he has been in the social media business since at least 2004, when he first started coding for the platform.
Musk, by comparison, made his fortune through a variety of different startups and later acquisitions. He co-founded the online city guide software firm Zip2. He also co-founded the online payment processor X.com, which merged with PayPal. Musk would go on to found the private space exploration company SpaceX, and then became CEO of the electric car company Tesla.
The ownership of powerful social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter has become an increasingly political issue. Executives from both platforms have been called before Congress to testify about their content moderation practices and how those practices are influenced by U.S. law.
Musk had accused the platform of failing to adhere to free speech principles and suggested he would change Twitter’s content moderation practices after buying out the platform.
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter last year had been a contentious process between the billionaire entrepreneur and the platform’s prior owners. After putting in an initial offer to buyout Twitter, Musk signaled hesitance to close the deal and raised questions about the number of bot accounts on the platform. Twitter’s prior owners sued Musk after he stalled the deal.
Once Musk did acquire Twitter, he began reinstating accounts that were banned or limited under the platform’s prior moderation practices. Musk’s Twitter buyout also preceded the release of the platform’s internal documents in a series of “Twitter Files” exposés.
The Twitter Files have revealed the platform’s communications with U.S. government officials before making content moderation decisions like censoring reporting about the contents of a laptop that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden had allegedly abandoned at a computer repair shop. Last August, Zuckerberg revealed Facebook also suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop reports following communications with the FBI.
Musk’s Twitter buyout has sparked debate about the platform’s past and present biases. In a May 2022, Musk said “Twitter [obviously] has a strong left wing bias.” After Musk’s buyout, some on the platform began suggesting people migrate over to alternative platforms like Tribel, a site founded by liberal political activist Omar Rivero.
Prior to his takeover, Twitter had awarded blue verification checks to a limited number of users, with the criterion that they had to be “active, notable, and authentic.” Some had complained that this criterion, especially the notability factor, could feel arbitrary. Musk phased out Twitter’s original blue verification check and replaced it with a subscription system that allows users to pay for verification. While the verification became less arbitrary, politicians, journalists and celebrities who had enjoyed their verified status under the old system risked losing their account verification if they refused to pay $8 per month under the new subscription model.
Meta’s Twitter alternative, currently dubbed Project 92 or P92, could add a new wrinkle to the battle for dominance in the social media industry.
In an interview with the Verge to preview P92, Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox called the product “our response to Twitter.” In an apparent dig at Musk’s handling of Twitter, Cox said, “We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution.”
