Will Elon Musk Fight Mark Zuckerberg in a Cage? You Can Bet on It

Twitter vs. Meta. Musk vs. Zuck. Will the battle of the social media titans happen? Well, now you can bet on it—quite literally.

Rumors of an official cage fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg began to circle after Musk tweeted that he’d be “up for a cage match if he is lol”. Zuckerberg screenshotted this tweet, posting it on his Instagram story with the caption “send me location”—a nod to the legendary UFC fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov.

As online speculation grew, crypto degens turned to prediction gambling site Polymarket to bet on “Will Elon and Zuck announce a fight?” Currently, over $57,000 has been waged with the majority of people putting their money on no. 

For the terms of this bet, a “physical fight” must be publicly confirmed by midnight on July 1—meaning a fight in the metaverse does not count.

“If this is for real, I will do it,” Musk tweeted late Wednesday in response to a tweet about Zuckerberg’s post.

UFC President Dana White told TMZ that both Musk and Zuckerberg are “absolutely dead serious” about the fight, and confirmed that he is trying to “figure out a way to pull this off.” While this may seem bullish, the mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion has recently received backlash for announcing fights before contracts have been signed by the fighters.

“This would be the biggest fight ever,” White continued, “in the history of the world.”

Zuckerberg has been training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) for “about a year”, according to ESPN. His coach Dave Camarillo—who coached former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez—called him “amazing” and “one of the best students” he’s ever had. 

Last month, Zuckerberg’s hand was raised at a BJJ tournament in Silicon Valley. Earlier in the year, the Meta CEO went on the “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast and professed his love for MMA and BJJ training.

“Where has this been my whole life?” Zuckerberg said he asked after discovering MMA.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s interest in MMA is less reported. According to White, Musk told him that “he’s done martial arts, he’s done jiu-jitsu,” and that he’s had “plenty of fights growing up in South Africa.”

Last year, Musk posted a photo of himself on Twitter apparently fighting a sumo wrestler, in an interaction with Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao. “Managed to throw him, but it cost me smashing my c5-c6 disc and eight years of mega back pain!” Musk tweeted.

“Damn, respect!” the Binance CEO replied. “Didn’t know this aspect of you.”

Solana NFT project Mad Lads took to Twitter to show its support for Elon Musk with a deepfake video using the final exchanges of the 2021 UFC fight, Poirier vs. McGregor 2. But instead of Poirier knocking out McGregor, it showed Musk knocking out Zuckerberg before turning away in celebration.