It appears that the much-anticipated bout between billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg is finally happening.
Elon Musk has said that the fight will take place in Rome. Musk said that he had taken permission from Italy’s Minister of Culture, and they had agreed on an “epic” location. This indicates that the fight could take place at the Colosseum, the ancient Roman arena where gladiators battled it out two millennia ago. “Everything done will pay respect to the past and present of Italy,” he tweeted.
Additionally, Musk said that the fight wouldn’t be managed by the UFC, but by his own and Zuckerberg’s foundations. Musk has previously said that the proceed from the fight — which could be the most valuable martial arts event in history — would be given to a charity that supports veterans, or former soldiers.
Now what’s caused two of the richest men in the world — Elon is worth nearly $250 billion, and Zuck is worth $100 billion — to ditch their boardrooms for the training mat is an innocuous tweet. A twitter user had said that Instagram had been looking to build a Twitter competitor, to which Musk had sardonically replied: “I’m sure Earth can’t wait to be exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options.” At this point, another user had jokingly told Musk to be careful because Mark Zuckerberg had been practicing Jui Jitsu, to which Musk had replied that he was up for a cage match if Zuckerberg was. Zuckerberg seemed to take the challenge seriously, and shared a post on his Instagram saying “send me location.”
But things have escalated only further from there. Musk has recently said that he’s practicing for the bout by lifting dumbbells in office, while Zuckerberg has been sparring with some of the world’s best MMA fighters for the fight. For the longest time, this Musk-Zuckerberg fight had been thought by many to be a running gag, a bit of a joke between two billionaires, but with Italy’s Ministry of Culture now involved, it appears that the fight is actually happening.