Mark Zuckerberg has said that Elon Musk’s plan to hold a cage fight is “not serious” and that “it’s time to move on.”
In a post on his social media site Threads, the head of Meta said he had offered Mr. Musk “a real date,” but the rival entrepreneur had made excuses.
Mr. Musk had said on his own message site, X, which used to be called Twitter, that he was ready to fight as soon as Monday.
The two billionaires decided to fight in June, which got a lot of attention from the media.
But even though they’ve been taunting each other for months, they still haven’t set a date for the fight, which makes it less likely that it will ever happen.
The war of words got harder when Threads came out in July. Threads is a texting app that competes with X. In less than a week, more than 100 million people signed up for Threads.
That number has gone down, and X is still ahead with about 350 million users. However, Mr. Musk has warned to sue Facebook for “illegally taking Twitter’s trade secrets.”
Meta says that they are false.
Mr. Zuckerberg said last week that he had suggested August 26 for the cage fight. Then, on Friday, there was a twist: Italy’s culture minister said he had talked to Mr. Musk about having the showdown in Italy as a charity event.
Mr. Musk said it would be based on “ancient Rome.”
On Sunday, however, the Meta boss wrote on Threads: “Elon won’t confirm a date, then said he needed surgery, and now he wants to do a practice round in my backyard instead.
“Elon knows how to get in touch with me if he ever wants to plan a real date and public event. If not, it’s time to go on. I’m going to try to compete with people who are serious about the sport.”
In response, Mr. Musk said that the Meta boss was a “chicken” on X.
Earlier, Mr. Musk had shared what he said was a text message exchange between himself and Mr. Zuckerberg on the messaging platform.
In it, he tells the Meta boss that he will be at Meta’s offices in Palo Alto on Monday and that the fight could take place in Mr. Zuckerberg’s Octagon, which is a ring with eight sides where cage fights take place.
Mr. Musk said, “I haven’t been practicing much, other than a short match with computer scientist and podcast host Lex Fridman today.”
“Given our size difference, I don’t think it’s likely, but maybe you’re Bruce Lee of our time and will find a way to win.”
Elon Musk, who is 52, and Mark Zuckerberg, who is 39, are two of the most well-known tech billionaires in the world.
In June, Mr. Musk wrote that he was “up for a cage fight” with Mr. Zuckerberg. This is where the crazy idea to fight each other came from.
The Meta boss, who has already trained in mixed martial arts (MMA) and has won jiu-jitsu tournaments lately, just said, “Send me location.”
