Elon Musk says his cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg will be streamed on X

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, left, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are ready to fight after the two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a cage match. Photo / Manu Fernandez, Stephan Savoia, AP

Elon Musk says his potential in-person fight with Mark Zuckerberg would be streamed on his social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.

The two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a “cage match” face-off in late June. Zuckerberg is actually trained in mixed martial arts, and the CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta posted about completing his first jiu-jitsu tournament earlier this year.

“Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on X,” Musk wrote in a post on the platform on Sunday. “All proceeds will go to charity for veterans.”

Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on 𝕏.

All proceeds will go to charity for veterans.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2023

Musk said earlier on Sunday that he was training for the fight by lifting weights.

“Don’t have time to work out, so I just bring them to work,” Musk wrote.

Whether or not Musk and Zuckerberg actually make it to the ring in Las Vegas has yet to be seen — especially as Musk often tweets about action prematurely or without following through. But even if their cage match agreement is all a joke, the banter has gained attention.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc, is said to be no slouch in martial arts. Photo / David Paul Morris, Bloomberg, File

It all started when Musk, who owns X, responded to a tweet about Meta preparing to release a new Twitter rival called Threads. He took a dig about the world becoming “exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options” — but then one Twitter user jokingly warned Musk of Zuckerberg’s jiu-jitsu training.

“I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk wrote.

Am lifting weights throughout the day, preparing for the fight.

Don’t have time to work out, so I just bring them to work.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2023

Representatives of X, Meta and Ultimate Fighting Championship, which owns the venue where the fight might take place, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Musk’s push to stream the video live on X comes as he aims to turn the platform into a “digital town square”. However, his much-publicised Twitter Spaces kickoff event in May with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announcing his run for president struggled with technical glitches and a near half-hour delay.

Musk had said the problems were due to “straining” servers because so many people were trying to listen to the audio-only event. But even at their highest, the number of listeners listed topped out at around 420,000, far from the millions of viewers that televised presidential announcements attract.