Elon Musk announced early Sunday that his planned fight against Mark Zuckerberg will be livestreamed on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. But Zuckerberg shot back with plenty of zingers Sunday afternoon, even ridiculing the idea that a livestream on X would be able to raise money for charity.
Zuckerberg shared a screenshot of Musk’s tweet Sunday afternoon on Threads, the Facebook billionaire’s competitor social media platform. Zuckerberg suggested X, which has been plagued by glitches in recent months, wasn’t a “reliable platform” to livestream the charity fight.
“Shouldn’t we use a more reliable platform that can actually raise money for charity?” Zuckerberg posted.
Aside from a bug that simply didn’t allow Twitter users to read tweets, an audio announcement hosted by the social media site to announce Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s bid for president was also marred by technical problems.
But Zuckerberg didn’t stop there. A number of people have asked when the fight will actually happen, something that doesn’t seem to have been settled yet. Zuckerberg said he proposed August 26, but that he hasn’t heard back from Musk.
“I’m ready today. I suggested Aug 26 when he first challenged, but he hasn’t confirmed. Not holding my breath,” Zuckerberg posted on Threads.
Musk previously tweeted that he’s been lifting weight to prepare for the fight but doesn’t have a lot of time. Musk’s solution, he said, was working out in the office.
“Am lifting weights throughout the day, preparing for the fight. Don’t have time to work out, so I just bring them to work,” Musk tweeted overnight.
The rivalry between Musk and Zuckerberg goes back years, but things seemingly escalated earlier this year when it became known Meta was working on a competitor to Twitter. Musk purchased Twitter back in October 2022 and has been seen as a chaotic force at the social media platform. Many major advertisers have abandoned the company over controversial and juvenile statements by Musk, with ad revenue down 50% since the billionaire bought the site.
In response to the chaos, Meta was reportedly pitching Threads as a “sane” alternative to Twitter, something that seemed to upset Musk a great deal. Musk, who’s 52 years old, proposed a fight back in June, though it wasn’t clear at the time how serious he was about the prospect. Zuckerberg is 39 years old and immediately accepted the challenge, perhaps because he’s been training in jiu jitsu for most of 2023.
Neither Meta nor Twitter responded to emailed questions on Sunday. I’ll update this article if I hear back.
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