The online fight between Musk and Zuck is more fun than the real one will be

Social media was always a weird place — and it’s only gotten wackier. When Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which used to be Facebook, announced it was starting Threads, a rival to X, which used to be Twitter (catch all that?), X owner Elon Musk “took a dig about the world becoming ‘exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options,’” the AP reminds us, “but then one Twitter user jokingly warned Musk of Zuckerberg’s jiu-jitsu training.”

Musk responded, “I’m up for a cage match if he is lol.” Since then, Musk and Zuck have continued to poke one another (remember when “poking” someone on Facebook was a thing?) with infantile barbs that show them to be the tech nerds they really are. Cockburn is enjoying the taunting tweets (if they’re still called that?) and Threads so much, he almost hopes the IRL fight never comes to pass.

For example, Musk posted Sunday that: “Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on X. All proceeds will go to charity for veterans.” To which Zuck replied: “Shouldn’t we use a more reliable platform that can actually raise money for charity?”

Then there’s this amusing headline from Insider that caught Cockburn’s eye earlier: “Elon Musk bragged about lifting ‘45 lb weights’ on Friday. Now he says he has to get an MRI on his neck and back and may need surgery before his cage match with Zuck.”

Adding to the intrigue is an interesting email Cockburn received moments ago from the “Adult Cam Platform” Stripchat, which is throwing its hat (and judging from the name, perhaps more than just its hat) in the ring.

“Today Stripchat, the adult webcam platform with 700 million monthly viewers, has submitted a formal offer to be the live streaming partner for the fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg,” the email reads. “Since they will never agree between X and Meta, Stripchat is obviously the best option! As a free live streaming platform with no prejudice, we find Stripchat to be a perfect third-party host for this fight. As you can see by the formality of our offer, we’re as serious about this as Elon and Mark are about their training for this epic bout.”

Selected highlights from the “formal letter” include the term “Billionaire Boys War,” the italicization of the word “come,” and the assertion that, “All proceeds generated from the live stream will be evenly split between Ukrainian webcam models who are raising funds for themselves and well-known Ukrainian funds.”

With emails like these, who needs an actual cage match between billionaire boys?