Insults, invitations to fight, threats of prosecution… between Musk and Zuckerberg the war is declared

2023-07-12 15:52:44

“Zuck is a cuckold”, “I propose a penis size contest”… Here are the kind of undistinguished messages that we can read in recent days on Elon Musk’s Twitter account. These attacks, emanating from the boss of Space X and directly targeting Mark Zuckerberg, have multiplied on social networks since the launch of Threads, the application of Meta, Facebook’s parent company. This new social network signed Mark Zuckerberg, which is currently not available in Europe, has crossed the 100 million user mark in just five days. A record. For its part, since its acquisition by Elon Musk for 44 billion dollars, Twitter has only lost users. What arouse a visceral hatred between the two billionaires.

For several years now, the two pretenders to the throne of Silicon Valley have regularly clashed on social networks, castigating one and the other their opposing vision on subjects such as artificial intelligence. Until challenging themselves to confront each other physically, in the manner of martial arts. On June 20, Elon Musk said he was “ready” for an MMA fight against Mark Zuckerberg, of which neither the date nor the place have been specified. To which the person replied “Send me the address”. This Tuesday, the Facebook creator and martial arts enthusiast also posted on Instagram, as an invitation, a shirtless photo of himself, alongside two MMA champions.

The disagreements between the two men reached their climax with the arrival of the Threads application on July 6. Elon Musk attacked Mark Zuckerberg again by ironically responding to a tweet from a user comparing the logo of the Meta application to a lone worm. A few days later, the Facebook boss went further in childish provocations by responding to a tweet from the Wendy’s restaurant chain urging him to go to “space” to “make Musk really angry”. Here the word “space” evokes space in reference to Space X, Elon Musk’s company, but also Twitter’s audio chat rooms.

The South African billionaire responded to the publication, accusing him of protecting the speech of brands. He then tweeted: “Zuck is a cuckold. I propose a real penis size contest”. This last post has since garnered 58,000 likes.

I propose a literal dick measuring contest ????

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2023

The rivalry between the two men has now gone beyond these provocations worthy of a “playground”. As soon as Threads went live, Twitter threatened to sue Meta, accusing it of breaching trade secrets. Former employees laid off by Elon Musk when he arrived at the head of the social network would have joined the competition by delivering “Twitter trade secrets and other highly confidential information”, according to lawyer Alex Spiro who sent a letter to Zuckerberg, quoted by the American media Traffic lights.

Two opposing concepts

Elon Musk intends to stifle the competition in the bud, while he is accused of “destroying” Twitter since he took the lead. In early July, the microblogging network restricted daily reading to 10,000 tweets for verified accounts, 1,000 for unverified and 500 for new accounts. Another reform much criticized since the arrival of Musk, Twitter Blue, a paid service which allows users to benefit from advantages such as the modification of tweets or the highlighting of publications via the algorithm. Regularly, Elon Musk is accused of promoting misinformation on Twitter. The principal concerned, affirms, him, to promote freedom of expression and the “freedom to be oneself” on the platform as he tweeted this Tuesday.

Twitter has two important advantages over other social media platforms.
The first privilege is the freedom of speech. The second privilege is the public nature & credibility of Twitter. Twitter doesn’t have an intolerant policy like Meta. Other platforms cannot replace it. pic.twitter.com/oYQTI3hgfI

– Anas Haqqani (Anas Haqqani) (@ AnasHaqqani313) July 10, 2023

A vision which seems shared by one of the leaders of the Taliban, Anas Haqqani for whom “Twitter does not have an intolerant policy like Meta. Other platforms cannot replace it,” he added. On the side of Threads, Mark Zuckerberg assures that “the vision of the social network is to create an open and friendly public space for conversation”, a concept opposed to Twitter regularly criticized for being filled with heated clashes and hysterical debates. The rivalry between the two billionaires is not about to stop.