Elon Musk announced that his upcoming fight with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg will be livestreamed on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. And while it’s still not clear when the fight will occur, Musk says he’s been lifting weights to prepare.
“Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on X. All proceeds will go to charity for veterans,” Musk tweeted early Sunday.
Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a physical fight back in June, though it seemed possible at the time both billionaires could have been joking. At this point, it really does seem like this “cage match,” as it’s previously been dubbed, might happen.
The 39-year-old Zuckerberg has been very publicly training in jiu jitsu, even before Musk expressed a desire to physically fight the fellow tech businessman. Musk is 52 years old and considered to be in worse shape than the Facebook founder. But Musk is apparently working on that problem while also running his companies.
“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.
Musk, who purchased Twitter back in October 2022 and recently changed the name of the service to X, runs a number of businesses, including electric vehicle company Tesla and commercial space venture SpaceX. Twitter hired a new CEO, NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino, a couple of months ago, but Musk is still very much the public face of the company.
Zuckerberg has reportedly been eating McDonald’s to replace all the calories he’s been burning through working out, according to the Sun newspaper. Zuckerberg is eating roughly 4,000 calories a day and has even posted shirtless photos of himself in training.
It will obviously be interesting to see whether Zuckerberg decides to simultaneously livestream the fight on a platform like Facebook or Threads, the latter being a recently launched competitor to Twitter. In fact, Threads could probably be seen as the impetus for this fight, as Zuckerberg’s new social media platform has reportedly been pitched as a more “sane” alternative to the chaos of Twitter. Musk’s version of Twitter has been marred by seemingly impulsive decisions from its owner to boost right-wing voices, including people like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, an anti-LGBT activist.
Musk’s cozy relationship to right-wing figures has been scaring off advertisers, with Musk recently saying that ad revenue is down 50% since he took over. Some executives who work at major brands are even scared to be seen in the same room with Musk, especially after incidents like his defense of Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, who advocated for racial segregation in the U.S. Musk defended Adams, claiming the media were the racists.
The decision to livestream the fight notably doesn’t mention whether there will be any kind of paywall. Twitter now allows users to hide some content behind a “subscribe” button, something that Musk would presumably be able to do if he were trying to raise considerable money from the venture, even if it went to charity.
Twitter and Meta did not immediately respond to emailed questions early Sunday. I’ll update this article if I hear back from either company.
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