Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg showed off his muscles in a photo posted on Instagram on July 11, alongside two great MMA fighters, Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski. One more proof that the businessman surrounds himself with favorite figures for his training.
The photo follows the now-long line of biting barbs exchanged between Zuckerberg and Elon Musk as they train to bring their rivalry to fruition in a bare-knuckle fight in the ring.
Meta’s launch of the social network Threads has sharpened the rivalry between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, at the helm of Twitter, a battle of egos that Meta’s CEO seems to take advantage of.
assumed rivalry
Even before this new app, a supposed rival to the Blue Bird network, went online, the tension had already escalated several notches between the two businessmen, with Elon Musk publicly challenging Mark Zuckerberg to a mixed martial arts match at the end of the week. June (WMA). Usually reserved, to the point of appearing cold, the thirty-year-old had responded in the affirmative.
Contrary to his habits, Mark Zuckerberg tried his luck with humor to make fun of Elon Musk on the occasion of the arrival of Threads, the platform that reached 100 million subscribers in less than five days.
He responded with an emoji crying with laughter to a shovel from the official account of the fast food chain Wendy’s, which suggested that he go into space “just to annoy” the one who is also head of the aerospace company SpaceX.
verbal games
Mark Zuckerberg has also been openly critical of Twitter, guilty, according to him, of not having been able to maintain a positive climate on his platform, which he promises to do for Threads.
Elon Musk then fired all weapons, first threatening Meta with a lawsuit for intellectual property infringement, possible, according to him, by the hiring of former Twitter employees, which the Menlo Park (California) group refutes.
He then sent a few flags against Threads on Twitter, before switching to full speed.
“Zuck is a cuck”, published the billionaire of South African origin, using a word that, in addition to rhyming with Mark Zuckerberg’s nickname, designates both a cuckold and, in a very pejorative way, a politically moderate or progressive person.
Having not received a response from the interested party, he then proposed “a true cockfighting contest” in a colorful message to his enemy on duty, without his reacting publicly.
“Kid Attitude”
“It’s clearly unique to see these two individuals, who are rich in the billions, embark on such a verbal contest,” said Andrew Selepak, a professor at the University of Florida.
“But it seems a bit unbalanced,” he says, because Elon Musk “has a boyish attitude,” unlike Mark Zuckerberg.
The gap between the two personalities seems to benefit the Facebook co-founder, who had suffered for several years from a degraded reputation.
The latter was the result of a mixture of an alleged excessive taste for power, an alleged lack of empathy, cold and robotic communication, but above all cases related to the use of personal data by Facebook, first of all the scandal of Cambridge Analytica, in 2018.
In addition, Threads has blown a breath of fresh air on Meta and his boss, at least as much because of his management differences with Twitter as because of his own characteristics.
The new social network is currently enjoying a grace period, without controversy, although it may not last. Thus, it offers a stable and predictable alternative for disappointed Twitter users scalded by its boiling owner.
a tense atmosphere
“The attraction for profit, that I can understand”, describes the analyst Carolina Milanesi, “while in the case of Twitter, we are in the presence of a rich man focused on himself, who has abject ethical values”.
Rivalries between big bosses, in technology and beyond, are not new, and neither is the bloodshed of some.
Two of the greatest personalities of the new economy, the co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, and that of Microsoft, Bill Gates, have thus maintained a relationship that mixes contempt and admiration for decades.
Bill Gates’ successor, Steve Ballmer, he “reversed the furniture when people moved (from Microsoft) to Google,” recalls Rob Enderle. “But that,” he says, referring to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, “is crazy.”
Source: BFM TV
