 "'Time to move on': Mark Zuckerberg calls off cage fight with Elon Musk")
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta and Threads, on Sunday, called off his much-anticipated cage fight with Twitter owner Elon Musk. In a post on Threads, he said that he was going to "focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously".
"I think we can all agree Elon isn't serious and it's time to move on. I offered a real date. Dana White offered to make this a legit competition for charity. Elon won't confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead," he said in the post.
"If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me. Otherwise, time to move on. I'm going to focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously."
Last week, Musk said that the fight would take place at an "epic location" in Italy.
"The fight will be managed by my and Zuck's foundations (not UFC). Livestream will be on this platform and Meta. Everything in the camera frame will be in ancient Rome, so nothing modern at all. I spoke to the PM of Italy and the Minister of Culture. They have agreed on an epic location. Everything done will pay respect to the past and present of Italy. And all proceeds go to veterans," Musk wrote in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter).
Later, Zuckerberg requested netizens not to buy into whatever the Tesla CEO said.
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"I love this sport and I've been ready to fight since the day Elon challenged me. If he ever agrees on an actual date, you'll hear it from me. Until then, please assume anything he says has not been agreed on," Zuckerberg wrote on Threads.
Zuckerberg further said that he was not holding his breath for Musk and would share the fight details when he was ready.
He added, "Not holding my breath for Elon, but I'll share details on my next fight when I'm ready. When I compete, I want to do it in a way that puts a spotlight on the elite athletes at the top of the game. You do that by working with professional orgs like the UFC or ONE to pull this off well and create a great card."
Musk responded, "If Zuck really wants a lesson in why there are weight categories in fighting so badly, I could just head over to his house next week and teach him a lesson he won't soon forget...Otherwise, we will do it as soon as the arena in Italy is ready."
"Or we could do both and consider next week just a practice session," he added.
The tech billionaires agreed to a "cage match" face-off in late June. It all began when Musk tweeted that he would be "up for a cage match" with Zuckerberg, who has trained in jiujitsu.
The exchanges have gone viral, with social media users debating who would win the bout, while others have posted memes, including mocked-up posters advertising the fight.
(With agency inputs)