The Real Loser In Elon Musk And Mark Zuckerberg’s Non-Cage Fight Was Us
It looks like the cage fight between X’s Elon Musk and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg that was going to be livestreamed on Twitter will no longer go ahead after “Zuck” shut the door on the prospect, saying Musk “isn’t serious” about the fight — yeah, no shit.
In case you missed it (lucky you), back in June of this year the two billionaires threatened to fight each other after Elon Musk said he’d be “up for a cage match” against his frenemy Mark Zuckerberg. “Zuck” then shared photos of himself allegedly winning Jiu-Jitsu matches saying “send location”. Oh god, I’m so tired.
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
Why did these men think we needed this cage fight to happen? What was it going to prove? Don’t answer. I’ll tell you: Literally nothing besides the fact that when two rich white men threaten to hit each other, the world seems to stop spinning on its axis. It’s as if two world leaders decided to beat the shit out of each other instead of actually working on global diplomacy — something that also happens way too much, as far as I’m concerned.
Taking a break from destroying the app he spent billions of dollars to own , Elon made sure to point out that the cage fight was “A civilized form of war. Men love war.” Ew! No thanks. Return to sender.
It’s a civilized form of war. Men love war.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2023
I’m highly doubtful there is any type of war that is “civilised” but Elon is right. History proves that men do in fact love war. But aren’t the wars Elon and Zuckerberg’s apps have waged on mental health and democracy enough? Why do the rest of us have to be subjected to a fight to appease two men who are clearly overcompensating for something?
Although the cage fight was never confirmed, its likelihood was actually quite high. Elon and Zuckerberg love to threaten to do things that make absolutely no sense, like the Metaverse or getting people to pay for Twitter. What’s got me so churned up is the fact that we were all supposed to care about it. Heck, I’m here talking to you about it right now. Double heck, so is the BBC. The BBC! It’s times like these that I wish Fight Club was real so that we never had to talk about this stupid fight in the first place.
But why? Why did we care? Were we bullied into it? Or were we actually interested? Like sure, I can see how it can be humorous — at best — to see these two grown men fight. But Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg both have a grotesque amount of power. They literally can shape the direction of humanity and influence war strategy and this is what they chose to do with their time?
And then we chose to go along for the pointless ride like complete fools because who cares if the world is boiling if we are entertained, right?
I’m not letting myself off the hook here. Was I keen to see both their shit get rocked? Yes. Yes I was. But maybe I was also a little relieved to know that fighting each other pulled their focus away from potentially ruining our future for five minutes.
Ky is a proud Kamilaroi and Dharug person and writer at Junkee. Follow them on X.
Image credit: AP / Paul Sakuma