I must admit that I hadn’t paid much attention to the upcoming charity Mixed Martial Arts match between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Despite having done MMA myself for years (not well, but I did it), the idea of seeing two tech titans, neither of whom is known for his fighting chops, going at each other in the arena didn’t float my boat. Having said that, I was a bit worried about the conservative-ish Musk, who is several years older than the totalitarian Facebook dude. However, if Musk’s tweets are accurate, it appears that Zuckerberg is the one playing coy about the fight.

Elon Musk is 52 and has had some weight issues. He recently dropped a lot of pounds after seeing a picture of himself that made him look pasty and puffy. Mark Zuckerberg is 39 and lean. Overall, Musk is substantially bigger than Zuckerberg. Both men have trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which focuses on takedowns, followed by ground fighting. Zuckerberg has even competed.

Image: Elon Musk and his sparring partner. Twitter screen grab.

Recently, there has been some maneuvering around the date for the proposed charity battle. Musk, apparently, was worried that he might need surgery on his upper back. However, after an MRI, things seemed to be good because he suggested having the match in Italy and took steps to make that happen.

However, over the weekend, things went sideways. Zuckerberg went onto Threads, his currently unsuccessful answer to Twitter, to complain that Elon was chickening out:

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.

Not holding my breath for Elon, but I'll share details on my next fight when I'm ready. When I compete, I want to do it in a way that puts a spotlight on the elite athletes at the top of the game. You do that by working with professional orgs like the UFC or ONE to pull this off well and create a great card.

(Just as an FYI, Zuck got 33,868 views on his first message and 6,124 on the second. That’s the total after three days. Elon gets those kinds of numbers after three minutes.)

However, if one goes to Musk’s Twitter account, which includes what Zuckerberg posted on his Threads site, the current winner in this war of words and posturing is…Elon Musk.

This is the full message: pic.twitter.com/UzbKoIkFOc

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2023

Elon’s tweet, by the way, got 1.3 million views since (checks calendar) yesterday. Also, Elon just sounds like the nicer person, doesn’t he?

Here’s the last cycle (so far) in the exchange between these two tech titans:

He’s trying to chicken out pic.twitter.com/BJV6GemJCO

— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) August 13, 2023

That tweet, incidentally, got 1.5 million views.

As I said, at an MMA level, this is not an interesting match. I happen to agree that Musk has the advantage because, when you’re doing ground fighting, being able to squish your opponent with your weight helps. That’s why people are divided into weight classes for competitions.

However, at a human level, in the war of words between two men, both of whom can be classified as Asperger’s, this whole thing is pretty darn funny. If they ever do take to the Matt, I’ll be rooting for Elon, who seems to be red-pilling rapidly, as opposed to Zuckerberg, whose ginormous platform is a tyrant’s delight thanks to its endless anti-conservative censorship.