Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, lit the internet on fire by replying to each other’s cage match challenge. Mr Musk added to the excitement by tweeting that there is “some chance” the fight may take place at the world’s most famous battleground, Rome’s Colosseum.
However, the news is mainly about building attention around two of the most popular social networking networks, and it comes just as Meta unveiled a challenger to Twitter.
The parent company of Facebook has placed a new software in stores as “Threads, an Instagram app” and expects it to be released on Thursday (July 6).
The two men have clashed for years, but a recent comment by a Meta executive implying that Twitter was not handled “sanely” irritated Mr Musk, prompting the two men to challenge each other to a cage fight. The present buzz stems from Mr Zuckerberg’s February announcement about ‘Threads’ with “increased authenticity” and “security across services” – both barbs at Twitter Blue.
Mr Musk has undertaken a number of adjustments since taking over Twitter in October last year, including the most recent one limiting the number of tweets certain categories of users may access. Despite the fact that the world’s richest man stated that the decision was made to combat “data scraping,” it sparked outrage among social media users.
While other microblogging platforms, such as Mastodon and Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey’s Blue Sky, have witnessed an increase in user numbers since Mr Musk’s acquisition, neither has been able to compete with Twitter, which has an estimated 250 million users.
However, Instagram already has hundreds of millions of registered users and a track record of launching new features based on the success of other social media companies. In response to the growing popularity of Snapchat, Instagram implemented a feature called “stories” in 2016, or user uploads that disappear after a certain length of time. More recently, the company’s short-form video feature “Reels” has attempted to counter TikTok’s popularity.
Mr. Zuckerberg, 39, is an amateur mixed martial arts fighter who has also trained in jiu-jitsu. Meanwhile, Mr Musk, 51, is a self-proclaimed street fighter and trainer.
Mr Musk initiated the “cage match” challenge to Mr Zuckerberg. The Meta chief responded, “Send Me Location,” to the challenge.
Despite the hype, there is no guarantee that the fight will take place.
