Is Mark Zuckerberg giving up on Elon Musk UFC fight? ‘Time to move on’

Mark Zuckerberg is apparently sick of Elon Musk playing games instead of taking their potential Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fight seriously.

The Facebook / Meta founder has been training hard and preparing for a “Billionaire vs. Billionaire” brawl inside UFC’s Octagon. Musk? He’s been talking a lot about the fight on X (the site formerly known as Twitter), but he hasn’t been training much. And a recent suggestion from Musk that they duke it out in a backyard Octagon instead (a real thing) has soured Zuck on the whole idea.

Musk shared a back-and-forth message exchange with Zuckerberg where he proposed the private mid-week scrap.

“If you still want to do a real MMA fight, then you should train on your own and let me know when you’re ready to compete,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I don’t want to keep hyping something that will never happen, so you should either decide you’re going to do this and do it soon, or we should move on.

“I will be in Palo Alto on Monday,” Musk countered. “Let’s fight in your Octagon. I have not been practicing much apart from a brief bout with [podcaster Lex] Fridman today. While I think it is very unlikely, given our size difference, perhaps you are a modern day Bruce Lee and will somehow win.”

Zuckerberg’s people responded to press inquiries regarding the offer by saying, “Mark is traveling right now and isn’t in Palo Alto. Also, Mark takes this sport seriously and isn’t going to fight someone who randomly shows up at his house.”

Later, the Facebook founder posted on his Twitter clone, Threads, suggesting he was done dealing with Musk’s foolishness.

“I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on,” he wrote. “I offered a real date. Dana White offered to make this a legit competition for charity. Elon won’t confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead.

“If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me,” Zuckerberg continued. “Otherwise, time to move on. I’m going to focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously.”

In response, Musk called Zuck a chicken.

If we’re not going to get Zuckerberg vs. Musk in The Colosseum, the least these two rich dudes could do is beat each other up in private. We never thought we’d be out here cheering on Zuckerberg, but he’s the one who is actually training mixed martial arts (MMA) and treating the sport with respect.

Even without Musk’s involvement, Zuckerberg sounds committed to having a UFC fight ... so at least we have that to look forward to. From Musk? Expect more theatrics without much substance.

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