Hi there. How are you? Hopefully, you’re having a nice day. Today, can we please talk about Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk wanting to fight each other? I have been fascinated by all of this since the initial reports of this fight being declared. However, when it all kicked off, I didn’t say much about it as I wanted to see how it all played out. But it doesn’t seem to be fizzling out at all. So here we are to think about how all of this – how this very public display of bravado – relates to a concept known as precarious manhood.
In case you are unaware, two of the most prominent tech bros, Zuckerberg and Musk, have been embroiled in a highly publicised feud. There’s obviously been some longstanding animosity between the two, given the fact that they both own two of the biggest social media companies. Still, things seemed to turn up a notch around the time that Zuckerberg was set to launch Threads. Which bears a striking resemblance to Twitter (now currently known as X, but I will continue to refer to it as Twitter because I can’t bring myself to call it X. I just think it’s a really fucking silly name. But anyway). Reports suggest that Musk was quite displeased about this development, and on June 20th, 2023, he took to Twitter to challenge Zuckerberg to a cage fight. I mean, the Tweet literally reads, “I’m up for a cage match if he is.” Which, I’m not going to lie, doesn’t feel like a very thought-through Tweet. The challenge was met with a response from Zuckerberg, who took to Instagram to inquire about the location, with Musk then suggesting the UFC Octagon in Las Vegas.
Now you would be forgiven for thinking that the situation would just have stopped there; however, it seems to have only escalated as time’s gone by.
While nothing has been set in stone – like no date or actual venue has been set – allegedly, UFC president, Dana White, wants the fight to happen and is trying to make the fight a reality. He’s been quoted as saying: “This would be the biggest fight ever in the history of the world, bigger than anything that’s ever been done. It would break all pay-per-view records.” So, we can see what his motivations might be to make this fight take place. More recently, Elon Musk has noted that the fight would be live-streamed on Twitter and that any money made would go to a charity for veterans. It seems like Musk might need to let Dana White know about what’s gonna happen with all that pay-per-view money. But, in discussing how likely the fight would be to happen, Dana White was of the opinion that Zuckerberg is taking this very seriously.
And he’s not wrong.
It’s been recently reported that Mark Zuckerberg has been training in Jujitsu for over a year and has recently been awarded his blue belt (no idea if that’s good or not, but it sounds impressive) and has also been winning competitions while he’s been at. In training for the fight, he’s reportedly been consuming 4,000 calories a day and has also reportedly (and if this is not a sign of escalation, then I don’t know what it is) had his own cage-fighting octagon installed in his garden, which his wife is apparently less than pleased about. Also, it’s been reported that Zuckerberg has been training with actual UFC stars Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski (I have no idea who these people are, but if you’re into UFC you might be impressed). Volkanovski has noted that he believes Zuckerberg is serious about fighting Musk and is quoted as saying: “Man, I'm telling you he [Zuckerberg] is serious. I don't know how serious Elon is, but I'm telling you, he [Zuckerberg] is training.” So, it seems that at least one of the billionaires preparing for a fight.
Musk, on the other hand, seems to be somewhat less prepared. In all fairness, Musk has reportedly often spoken about being in “real hard-core street fights” while growing up in South Africa, with his father, Errol Musk, noting that Elon had once “aced a purple belt in Japanese karate”. Musk seems also to have once told Joe Rogan that he has trained in taekwondo, judo and Brazilian Jujitsu. Jujitsu seems to be the thing to do when you’re a billionaire. Alongside this, it has also been noted that Musk will have a significant height and weight advantage over Zuckerberg. So, looking into this, and depending on which website you look at, Musk is 52 years old, between 5’11’’ and 6’1’’, and weighs between 180 to 187 lbs. While by contrast, Zuckerberg is between 5’7’’ and 5’8’’ and weighs between 154 to 165 lbs.
However, despite this, and speaking once more about his son, Errol Musk has noted that Elon Musk “doesn't know how to go in for the kill” so to speak. So resounding support from Papa Musk there. In terms of actual training for the fight, Musk has allegedly been offered assistance by (and again, maybe this means something to you, but it doesn’t to me) UFC star Jorge Masvidal, apparently reaching out to Musk and stating that Musk needs Masvidal on his team. I have no idea if Musk has accepted this. However, Musk has apparently been (and I quote here) “lifting weights throughout the day”, adding, “I don’t have time to work out, so I just bring them [the weights] to work.” So, it looks like Musk is getting into some training, but seemingly not as much as Zuckerberg is, though.
Because of this, most people are putting their money on Zuckerberg. A boxing promoter, Eddie Hearn, has been quoted as saying, “I don't know anything about Elon Musk's training regime, but if I was Elon Musk, I’d be staying well away from it.” He followed this up by saying, “If you go in a cage with someone that knows how to do Brazilian jujitsu like it's over.” But apparently, Musk knows jujitsu too, remember? So who knows. Mr Hearn is not the only one doubting Musk’s chance in the cage. His father was also noted to have said that he's quite worried about the prospects of the fight, calling it “high school behaviour”, but also noting that Musk “loses if he wins and loses if he loses”. So, according to his father, if Musk wins, he’s a bully, and if he loses, he’s a loser. His father has gone on to say, “I think Elon has got himself into quite the difficult situation as a result of high school behaviour. They both have.” I would argue that Musk the Elder is quite astute in this observation. So, how have Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk gotten themselves into this situation?
Well, there are several reasons why this fight might be bulldozing its way to becoming an eventuality. Firstly, there is money to be made. Even though Musk has said that profits will go to charity, I am not so sure someone somewhere won’t be profiting off this fight in a non-charitable way. Secondly, there is the old adage that “all press is good press” (or something like that). So, there is no doubt that both Zuckerberg and Musk stand to gain with all the media attention this fight is generating, especially Zuckerberg in relation to Threads. The other one is possibly ego. But it might relate to something a bit deeper than that. It might relate to a concept called “precarious manhood.” Now, before anyone worries that I am trying to get into the minds of Zuckerberg and Musk, I’m not. I have no idea what they are actually thinking or what their motivations might be. What I am about to offer is nothing more than a social theory that could be used to inform what’s going on here. It is not a definitive answer but more of a possible hypothesis.
Precarious manhood is a theory that suggests that the societal perception of manhood is often seen as something that is not inherent or automatic but rather needs to be continually earned and proved through actions and behaviours. This theory suggests that manhood is fragile and easily lost, making it a “precarious” state. The idea of precarious manhood suggests that men are under constant pressure to demonstrate their masculinity and prove themselves as “real men.” This can manifest in various ways.
In a paper titled “Precarious Manhood and Its Links to Action and Aggression”, the authors explored the idea that because manhood is often seen as something that needs to be proven and maintained, men may feel compelled to engage in behaviours that demonstrate their toughness, dominance, and control. This can lead to actions that are more aggressive or risk-prone compared to individuals who do not feel the same pressures to prove their masculinity. The reviewed a series of experiments and studies to examine the ways in which men’s behaviours are influenced by the perception of their own manhood being precarious. They found that when men’s sense of masculinity was threatened or questioned, they were more likely to respond with behaviours that are traditionally associated with masculinity, such as aggression and risk-taking.
For example, I am going to read an excerpt from the paper: “If manhood threats activate physically aggressive cognitions among men, do they also evoke physically aggressive behaviours? To answer this question, we threatened some men’s gender status by making them perform a stereotypically feminine hair-braiding task; other men performed a gender-neutral rope-braiding task. Next, all men got to choose between hitting a punching bag or solving a puzzle. If men use aggressive displays to restore manhood, then men in the hair-braiding condition should select the punching task more frequently than men in the rope-braiding condition. Indeed, this is what happened. In a follow-up study, men first did the hair- or rope braiding task, and then all of them donned boxing gloves and hit a pad that measured the impact of their strikes. Consistent with the idea that manhood threats evoke physically aggressive displays, men who had styled hair punched the pad harder than did those who had braided rope. Finally, men in a third study did the hairstyling task and then either did or did not punch the pad. Next, they all completed a measure of anxiety. Men who
punched the pad after the hairstyling task exhibited less anxiety than men who did not punch, suggesting that aggressive displays can effectively downregulate men’s anxiety in the wake of manhood threats. Thus, these findings provide converging evidence that men use displays of physical aggression to restore threatened manhood.”
I mean, I am not sure I need to expand on this further to highlight the parallels between what Zuckerberg and Musk are doing and the above discussion of precarious manhood. But it seems possible that through various threats to their essence of being men, which may have started with Musk feeling massively threatened by Zuckerberg releasing Threads, which I guess can be hypothesised as a threat to Musk’s status, he then possibly Tweeted a flippant challenge to Zuckerberg. Who, in kind, when seeing a public physical challenge, and most likely being in a good enough state of physical prowess, took up that threat to his own masculinity and responded by taking up the challenge.
Now, when I first started writing this podcast episode, it was looking like this was all snowballing towards both men beating the shit out of each other, which would have been ludicrous. Initially, due to the possible influence of precarious manhood on this whole situation, I thought that neither of these men would want to bow out; that taking a mature position on how things are escalating would not happen. However, the social media news site, Pubity, released a Threads post by Mark Zuckerberg, who has stated he is moving on from the fight. In the post, Zuckerberg writes:
“I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on. I offered a real date [which was apparently August 26th]. Dana White offered to make this a legit competition for charity. Elon won’t confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and not asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead [probably because you have built an Octagon ring there, Mark]. If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me. Otherwise, time to move on. I’m going to focus on competing with people who take sport seriously.”
So, while it seems that Mark Zuckerberg is allegedly moving on from the fight, he has not necessarily been mature or nice about it. In the message, it seems he has still done a few things to maintain the image of his manhood and seemingly tries to undermine Musk’s. There is the idea that Musk seems to have been offering excuse after excuse not to get involved in the fight, while Zuckerberg has openly been preparing for it, which seems to give the impression that Musk is worried and possibly scared to undertake the fight. And then there’s the jibe about competing against people who take sport seriously, which again, is a slight undercutting of Musk’s image of a man – that he does not take sport seriously because that is what men do… which, to me, is a weird angle to take, because, I don’t know about you, but I was not aware that Zuckerberg was in any way a fan of sport or sporty before this whole drama unfolded.
So, while this seems to have ended for now, the way in which Zuckerberg has ended, it leaves his image of a man capable and willing to engage in an aggressive form of sport intact while seemingly trying to undermine Musk’s image of being a “real man”. So even in this way, there are elements of precarious manhood playing out. It would perhaps have been different if Zuckerberg had put out a post that went something along the lines of, “I realise that things are getting out of hand. I reacted to Musk’s initial Tweet from an emotional place, but thinking about it now, training to beat the shit out of each other is not the mature image I want to convey to the world. So, because of this I am withdrawing from the fight.” It will be interesting to see how Musk responds to this. Who knows, if Musk feels further emasculated, this fight might still be back on. But, for both their sakes, I hope this is where it ends.
Anyway, that’s it from me. I’ll leave this with you to percolate and to think about. All resources used in this podcast are linked in the show notes at the end of the transcript. So, if you want to have a read, please do. Also, if you have any thoughts you want to share, do get in touch and let me know what they are. If you have the time, please rate the show, or leave a comment. But also, please share it with anyone else you think might enjoy it. Thanks again for listening to my bullshit. Hopefully, you’ve taken something from the show.
Hope you have a great day. Or not. No pressure.
Sources
The Sun: “Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg fight updates”
Sportsmanor: “Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg – Height and Weight Differences Between the Two Rivals”
Journal Article: “Precarious Manhood and Its Links to Action and Aggression”
Pubity: “Zuckerberg Withdraws from Fight with Musk”
Music
Opening: “Chilled Ambient Minimal”
Closing: “Seven” - Tobu
35: The Precarious Manhood of Billionaires