Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg may be ready to move on from his proposed clash with fellow tech guru and billionaire Elon Musk, but that doesn’t mean he’s done training for a turn inside the Octagon one day.
Zuckerberg has long been linked to a fight with Musk ever since the Titan of Tesla laid down a cage match challenge to the Meta CEO on his recently revamped social media platform X, formerly Twitter. ‘The Zuck’ gladly accepted the proposal, but things didn’t truly take off until UFC President Dana White stepped up and suggested that the promotion would host the social media smackdown.
In more recent weeks, things have seemingly fallen apart for the fantasy fight as Musk and Zuckerberg have failed to see eye-to-eye on how to take advantage of the opportunity. Zuckerberg would prefer to do things on the straight and narrow, competing under the umbrella of a top-shelf combat sports organization such as the UFC or ONE Championship. Musk on the other hand wants to take the bout to Italy where the pair can stream their fight on social media from within Rome’s iconic Colosseum.
With the pair far apart on how the fight should go down, Zuckerberg is seemingly ready to walk away from the entire circus, but he’s not giving up on his UFC dream just yet. In an interview with TMZ Sports, Dana White revealed that ‘The Zuck’ is “very serious” about one day stepping inside the Octagon.
“He takes the sport very serious. He trains very hard and he is very serious about possibly competing someday and that’s why he doesn’t want to be a part of something that kept being talked about, but probably wouldn’t happen, but yeah,” White said. “He won’t be here this weekend [at UFC 292]. I have a show every Tuesday called Dana White’s Contender Series. He might pop in for one of those on a Tuesday in Vegas, but yeah. He’s training and he’s very serious about it.”
Mark Zuckerberg Could Compete in the UFC Against Another Professional Fighter
Dana White also shared his take on why things between the two billionaires seemingly fell apart so fast.
“He and I talk multiple times a week and we had dinner last Monday,” White continued. “He’s very serious about competing and when he mentioned it, he said what he was saying in response to Elon was there are tons of professional organizations out there and this is the way this should be done. Not in some backyard or whatever Elon was saying.
“Elon’s hilarious, but think about this, you’ve got two of the richest most powerful men in the world and they say they want to fight. It has to be sanctioned by an athletic commission. The proper medical testing has to be done. The proper drug testing has to be done, and that’s what Zuckerberg is saying. There are plenty of professional organizations out there. We should be fighting in the UFC.”
Asked if he sees Mark Zuckerberg one day competing against another professional fighter signed by the UFC, White said:
“Anything is possible and I would say he is absolutely interested in doing that.”