Zuckberg vs. Musk: Who Will Win the Cage Contest?

This will end up with Elon Musk in traction and multiple bruises.

I’m going to my grave believing that the world’s richest man has secretly invented a way to add days to his hours. It does not make any sense. How does Mr. Musk twist time to run Twitter, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company? And how does he do it while stopping the clock to be an improvisation bastard in cultural sideshows of his making?

Musk has the DNA of a troll out for a brawl. But he may now be on a collision course with a literal beating. This week, in response to reports that rival Meta is developing a platform to compete with Twitter, Musk said he was up for a cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg. He was joking.

The problem? Mr. Zuckerberg did not laugh. He accepted the challenge.

When my twin daughters learned to walk and wobbled and fell on their bottoms, I smiled to comfort them and cheerfully said, “Whoopsie-daisy!” I suspect that’s what Musk’s inner circle is saying after Zuckerberg posted a screenshot of this ridiculous call to fistfights with a Terminator-style response: “Send me location.”

Obviously, if this fight actually goes ahead, it won’t be a Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier will be. It might not even be Kim Kardashian vs. Tamara Frapasella. I remember looking at that one and shuddering when Kim was beaten while taking pictures at the Kranium. That’s what Musk faces if he has the guts to go into the cage.

Is a possible pay-per-view brawl between two tech billionaires more than absurd? Yes. Is the world in serious trouble? Yes. Should these two spend all their free time trying to figure out why social media is a social disease instead of training to beat the living daylights out? Yes. But this is the world we live in. Doing what is right is less important than doing what gets attention. And now millions are thrilled by the prospect of seeing two high foreheads wrestling in a steel cage.

Even in the heyday of the Apple-Microsoft competition, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates would never have agreed more than a game of chess. Chokeholds were off limits.

This week made headlines around the world. The gambling sites are already cracking the odds. On Thursday, DraftKings put the line: “Elon Musk +140, Mark Zuckerberg -160.” I suspect marketers are now in exploratory meetings to see how to frame this fight: “We need something like Tension in Manila or Rumbling in the jungle. I do not know maybe The Nerd Final in Silicon Valley?”

Let’s try to imagine this hypothetical fight. Musk enters in blue swimming trunks with a twitter bird above his cock. Zuck enters in a Meta Quest VR headset. Joe Rogan calls the action. Jack Dorsey is the umpire. RFK Jr. stands in the front row and inexplicably cheers for Russia. The undercard shows Marjorie Taylor Greene vs. Lauren Boebert. The audience misses most of the first round because they stare at their phones.

It’s crazy. Most of us would never consider fighting others in our profession. I would never challenge another Canadian columnist to put on their dukes. Well, maybe Rex Murphy. But only because I admire his vocabulary and would get a kick out of his nonsense talk: “The accismus of your solipsism can destroy the barrage of bizazz my gray meat hooks are about to inflict on your brown solar plexus, not hinder or thwart.”

I’m afraid Elon just opened a can of poop on himself. He sees himself as an alpha male in the beta world of technology. He bullies without consequences. He performs his yap without a mute button. But it seems he forgot that Zuckerberg is a surfer and jogger who has also been dabbling in Brazilian jiu-jitsu for the past year. Zuckerberg recently won gold and silver medals in a martial arts tournament. According to TMZ, he also took less than 40 minutes to complete the “Murph Challenge,” which consists of a one-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, and a second one-mile run, all while he had his clothes on. a weight vest. Meanwhile, Musk hits his vape, lounging on a camp bed and tries to come back this week with self-deprecating humor: “I have a great move I call ‘The Walrus’ where I just lay on top of my opponent and do nothing.”

Does this mean he used the Walrus on Twitter?

Boys stay boys and tech bros become tech bros. But Musk just tweeted more than he can chew. As The Verge’s Alex Heath reported, “I’ve confirmed that Zuckerberg’s post on his Instagram account isn’t in fact a joke, meaning the ball is now in Musk’s court.” Zuck is eager to throw down. Zuck isn’t messing around.

I watched footage of him in hand-to-hand combat. The intensity is shocking. He’s like a psychotic monkey on a contortionist mission – grab, twist, pin – until his opponent surrenders. Zuckerberg has always struggled to prove he is human. He usually resembles a cyborg sent to a data mine from the future.

But when he fights, it’s visceral. He turns into a tough person.

And this leaves Musk with two bad options: 1. He can sheepishly fade this brouhaha. 2. Or he can save face and possibly ruin his face.

It’s time Elon Musk realized that his tweeting is now dangerous to his health.

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