Zuckerberg dismisses Musk for avoiding cage fight: 'It’s time to move on'

The long-hyped anticipation of a cage lucifer betwixt tech titans Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk appears to beryllium nary more, aft Zuckerberg dismissed Musk for allegedly delaying their anticipated showdown successful the ring.

"I deliberation we tin each hold Elon isn't superior and it's clip to determination on," the Facebook co-founder wrote Sunday successful a station connected Threads, the text-based app Meta launched as a rival to X, the company formerly known arsenic Twitter.

The societal media executives person been teasing the anticipation of a mixed martial arts combat since June, calling it a "cage match," an informal word referring to wrestling successful a closed-in abstraction that combatants purpose to flight from.

But successful his latest comments connected the matter, Zuckerberg said that portion helium was acceptable to fight, Musk kept coming up with reasons helium couldn't.

"I offered a existent date. Dana White offered to marque this a legit contention for charity," Zuckerberg wrote, referring to the president of the Las Vegas-based institution Ultimate Fighting Championship, who the New York Times previously reported was trying to signifier the fight.

"Elon won't corroborate a date, past says helium needs surgery, and present asks to bash a signifier circular successful my backyard instead," the main enforcement serviceman of Meta continued. Musk previously claimed helium whitethorn request surgery before warring his rival.

"If Elon ever gets superior astir a existent day and authoritative event, helium knows however to scope me. Otherwise, clip to determination on. I'm going to absorption connected competing with radical who instrumentality the athletics seriously," Zuckerberg concluded.

Musk has not yet publically responded to Zuckerberg's latest comments, and a spokesperson for X could not instantly beryllium reached.

But earlier Sunday, he tweeted what helium claimed was a screenshot of a substance speech with Zuckerberg successful which Musk appeared to suggest they conscionable for "a signifier bout" connected Monday successful the backyard of Zuckerberg's Palo Alto home, wherever helium antecedently claimed to person built an Octagon, a UFC-branded ring, TMZ reported earlier this month.

Their affable rivalry intensified erstwhile Zuckerberg rolled retired Threads past period successful a bid to vie with X. An lawyer for Musk subsequently sent a letter accusing Meta of misappropriating X's commercialized secrets and hiring ex-Twitter employees to marque Threads.

"I'm definite Earth can't hold to beryllium exclusively nether Zuck's thumb with nary different options," Musk tweeted ahead of the Threads rollout.

Shortly after, successful responding to an X idiosyncratic who joked astir Zuckerberg being trained successful the Brazilian combat athletics of jiujitsu, Musk responded, "I'm up for a cage lucifer if helium is lol."

Meta's communications director, Andy Stone, responded to reports of the missive from Musk's attorney, saying connected Threads, "No 1 connected the Threads engineering squad is simply a erstwhile Twitter worker — that's conscionable not a thing."

Musk and Zuckerberg are the 2nd and 16th richest radical connected the planet, respectively, according to Forbes' astir caller database of billionaires.