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29th June 2023
10:55am BST
Elon Musk appears to have begun training for his cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg as the unlikely encounter becomes increasingly likely.
The Telsa boss has been pictured grappling with black-belt podcaster Lex Fridman, who said he was "extremely impressed" with the billionaire's fighting form.
The Musk and Zuckerberg beef was born on social media, seemingly as a joke, but has quickly gained momentum and the support of UFC boss, Dana White who is keen to make it happen. Both men are said to be very "serious" about it.
Musk, who purchased Twitter in October 2022, started the ball rolling when he responded to a tweet warning him that Zuckerberg knows jiu-jitsu, off the back of rumours the Meta boss was starting up a platform to rival his. He wrote: "I'm up for a cage match if he is." Zuckerberg hit back with, "Send Location". The pair settled on Las Vegas.
Fridman, the host of the Lex Fridman Podcast and a research scientist at MIT, posted photos on his Instagram on Tuesday of a training session with Musk.
In a caption, he wrote: "I did an impromptu training session with Elon Musk for a few hours yesterday. I’m extremely impressed with his strength, power, and skill, on the feet and on the ground."
But Fridman appears to be playing both sides, as he earlier shared footage of him training with Zuckerberg who has already earned a few medals competing in Jiu-Jitsu tournament last month.
"Here's a highlight video of @zuck and I training jiu-jitsu. I look forward to training with Elon as well. It's inspiring to see both Elon and Mark taking on the martial arts journey. Full video is up on YouTube," he wrote in the caption.
The pictures comes as Musk's mum, Maye Musk, has made it clear she doesn't want her son climbing into the octagon.
“No joking. Fight with words only. In armchairs. 4 feet apart. The funniest person wins.”
Musk is also set to train with one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, after accepting an offer from, Georges St-Pierre. He did not respond to an earlier offer from rape-accused former kickboxing champion, Andrew Tate.
Musk received offers from a bunch of high-profile UFC stars including Jorge Masvidal, Dominick Cruz, and Hasbulla, but went with St-Pierre.
The former welterweight and middleweight champion publicly offered his services, telling Musk on Saturday: “I’m a huge fan of yours and it would be an absolute honour to help you and be your training partner for the challenge against Zuckerberg,”
Three days later, Musk took him up on the offer.
“Ok, let’s do it,” he replied alongside several fire emojis.
UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones has revealed he is backing Zuckerberg to beat Musk and has even offered to train the Meta CEO ahead of his MMA debut.
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