The two tech billionaires have traded plenty of verbal blows on their social media platforms – but the prospects of their mooted clash happening looks further away than ever.
By Daniel Binns, news reporter
Mark Zuckerberg has accused Elon Musk of not being serious about the pair having a cage fight – and says it is time to “move on” from the saga.
The Facebook co-founder said his tech billionaire counterpart did not appear to want to go through with the highly-anticipated clash after failing to even agree on a date.
It comes following months of back-and-forth between the pair ever since Musk, 52, first suggested the idea – only for Zuckerberg, 39, to unexpectedly respond that he was prepared to battle his rival.
But doubts have been raised if Musk is willing to go through with the bout after claiming last week that he may have to delay it because he might be having back surgery.
He then requested a practice fight first.
But on Sunday Zuckerberg suggested he had now given up hope of the fight ever happening.
He wrote on his social network site Threads: “I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on.
“I offered a real date. [Ultimate Fighting Championship president] 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 added: “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.”
Earlier on Sunday, Musk posted a screenshot on his social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, of a text conversation between the two men.
According to the post, Mr Zuckerberg wrote: “If you still want to do a real MMA [mixed martial arts] fight, then you should train on your own and let me know when you’re ready to compete.
“I don’t want to keep hyping something that will never happen, so you should either decide you’re going to do this and do it soon, or we should move on.”
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Mr Musk replied: “I will be in Palo Alto on Monday. Let’s fight in your Octagon”.
“I have not been practicing much… while I think it is very unlikely, given our size difference, perhaps you are a modern day Bruce Lee and will somehow win.”
Last week Mr Musk suggested the planned cage fight might take place in an “epic location” and claimed he had been in talks with the Italian government about hosting the event.
But Zuckerberg responded by saying he was “not holding his breath”.
He added: “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.”
