Opinion | By challenging Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match, Elon Musk has tweeted off more than he can chew

This will end with Elon Musk in traction and multiple contusions.

I will go to my grave believing the world’s richest man secretly invented a way to add days to his hours. It makes no sense. How does Mr. Musk warp time to run Twitter, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company? And how does he do so while freezing the clock to be an improv jackass in cultural sideshows of his making?

Musk has the DNA of a troll spoiling for a brawl. But he may now be on collision course with a literal beat-down. This week, in response to reports rival Meta is developing a platform to compete with Twitter, Musk said he’d be up for a cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg. He was joking.

The problem? Mr. Zuckerberg did not laugh. He accepted the challenge.

When my twin daughters were learning to walk and would wobble and fall on their bums, I’d smile to comfort them and cheerfully say, “Whoopsie-daisy!” I suspect that is what Musk’s inner circle is saying after Zuckerberg posted a screen grab of this ridiculous call to fisticuffs with a Terminator-style reply: “Send me location.”

Now, obviously, if this fight actually proceeds, it won’t be a Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier. It might not even be Kim Kardashian vs. Tamara Frapasella. I remember watching that one and wincing as Kim got klobbered while taking shots to the kranium. That is what Musk faces if he has the guts to enter the cage.

Is a possible pay-per-view brawl between two tech billionaires beyond absurd? Yes. Does the world have serious problems? Yes. Should these two be spending all their free time trying to figure out why social media is a social disease instead of training to beat the living daylights out of one another? Yes. But this is the world we inhabit. Doing what is right matters less than doing what gets attention. And now millions are amped up by the prospect of seeing two high-foreheads grapple in a steel cage.

Even in the heyday of the Apple-Microsoft competition, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates would have never agreed to more than a chess match. Chokeholds were off limits.

There were headlines around the globe this week. The gambling sites are already crunching the odds. On Thursday, DraftKings set the line: “Elon Musk +140, Mark Zuckerberg -160.” I suspect marketers are now in exploratory meetings to see how they might frame this bout: “We need something like Thrilla in Manilla or Rumble in the Jungle. I don’t know, maybe The Nerd Finale in Silicon Valley?”

Let’s try to imagine this hypothetical fight. Musk enters in blue trunks with a Twitter bird above his pecker. Zuck enters in a Meta Quest VR headset. Joe Rogan calls the action. Jack Dorsey is the referee. RFK Jr. is in the front row, inexplicably cheering for Russia. The undercard features Marjorie Taylor Greene vs. Lauren Boebert. The crowd misses most of the first round because they are staring at their phones.

It’s crazy. Most of us would never consider fighting others in our profession. I would never challenge another Canadian columnist to put up their dukes. Well, maybe Rex Murphy. But only because I admire his vocabulary and would get a kick out of his trash talk: “The accismus of your solipsism can’t counteract nor thwart the barrage of bizazz my grizzled meat hooks are about to inflict on your brown solar plexus.”

I’m afraid Elon has just opened a can of whoop-ass on himself. He fancies himself an alpha male in the beta world of tech. He bullies without consequence. He runs his yap without a mute button. But it seems he forgot Zuckerberg is a surfer and jogger who has also spent the past year immersing himself in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Zuckerberg won gold and silver medals at a recent martial arts tournament. According to TMZ, he also needed less than 40 minutes to complete the “Murph Challenge,” which includes a one-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and a second one-mile run, all while wearing a weighted vest. Meanwhile, Musk is hitting his vape, lounging on a cot and trying to backtrack this week with self-deprecating quips: “I have this great move that I call ‘The Walrus,’ where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing.”

Does this mean he used the Walrus on Twitter?

Boys will be boys and tech bros will be tech bros. But Musk has just tweeted off more than he can chew. As the Verge’s Alex Heath reported: “I’ve confirmed that Zuckerberg’s post on his Instagram account is, in fact, not a joke, which means the ball is now in Musk’s court.” Zuck is keen to throw down. Zuck is not screwing around.

I have watched footage of him in hand-to-hand combat. The intensity is startling. He’s like a psychotic monkey on a contortionist mission — grabbing, twisting, pinning — until his opponent submits. Zuckerberg has always struggled to prove he is human. He usually seems like a cyborg sent from the future to data mine.

But when he is fighting, it’s visceral. He turns into a badass human.

And this leaves Musk with two bad options: 1. He can sheepishly let this brouhaha fade away. 2. Or he can save face and quite possibly get his face savaged.

It’s time for Elon Musk to realize his tweeting is now hazardous to his health.

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