Elon Musk‘s father has condemned a possible superfight between the Twitter boss and rival tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, branding a contest between them ‘a no-win situation’ for his son.
Errol Musk, 77, said: ‘The thing is if this crazy fight goes ahead, if Elon beats this guy, Elon will be called a bully, being so much heavier and taller, while if he loses the humiliation would be total.
‘It’s a no-win situation for Elon. I think Elon has got himself into a difficult situation as a result of high school behavior. They both have,’ he told The Sun.
Errol’s comments echo the sentiment of the Tesla and SpaceX founder’s mother Maye, 75, who has also expressed her distaste at the idea of her son getting into the cage and told Lex Fridman, an AI researcher, martial artist and notable podcaster who recently trained with the Facebook founder not to encourage the pair to fight.
The prospect of a scrap between two of the world’s most famous tech entrepreneurs arose last week when Twitter CEO Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cage fight in response to speculation Facebook parent company Meta was planning to launch a Twitter rival.
Zuckerberg responded via Instagram accepting the challenge, with the pair now rumoured to be discussing the finer points of potential bout in Las Vegas with Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White, who claimed their fight could rake in some $1billion.
Former UFC star-turned promoter and podcaster Chael Sonnen, who retired from the sport in 2019, weighed in on the topic during a recent interview, explaining how the social media empires of both tech titans could bring about unprecedented viewing figures for their fight.
He told the MMA Hour: ‘You could for sure do 10 million-plus [pay-per-view buys].
‘But you could be closer to 20 and 25 [million pay-per-view buys], because what I would predict is both of their companies would start some kind of a digital arm.
‘So all of a sudden, I believe that Twitter would be hosting pay-per-views, and I believe Facebook would, as well. Now you’re talking 25 million views here.
‘That’s insane, what I just said. You could do that if the business shifted and changed a little bit. Sure you could.’
The current record for most pay-per-view buys was set by boxers Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in 2015 – when 4.6million people tuned into their bout.
