Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg will engage in nothing short of a physical cage fight. Or so it seemed: Zuckerberg now thinks Musk is unserious about the fight and Musk called Zuckerberg a "coward". So whether this is really going to happen is highly in doubt. However, the online staredown, or perhaps we should say online mud-slinging, is in full swing. Just in case this fight will actually take place, we, as guardians of a free and open Internet, are doing a pre-fight talk.

A cage fight, eh?

It all started with Musk's tweet "I'm up for a cage match if he is lol" and Zuck's unexpected response through his Instagram: "Send Me Location." After that Musk started posting quotes like "Men love war" (brb, throwing up in our mouth) and Zuck suggested a time and location. Among the other rather bizarre rumours: a live stream of the fight and an epic location in Italy. We see.

Musk

We spoke with several experts about Musk's chances. He is an unpredictable man, which also makes his chances difficult to estimate. Based on his history, though, you could say it's plausible he won't fare well.

Musk is known for having a huge plate for his head. He ignores criticism, even when it is aimed at a better society. So he took over Twitter, now X, and fired just about everyone who did anything about human rights. That made the platform even more toxic than it already was. Experts therefore predict that Musk will be a difficult candidate for his trainer(s). If the trainer points out weaknesses or comes up with long-term plans, chances are he will fire the trainer. And a fighter without a trainer, he's going to take hits.

Musk is not a rule follower. In fact, it sometimes seems as if he deliberately flouts rules to thwart authorities, people and their rights. For example, he is regularly warned by European politicians: if the new platform laws go into effect, X will be screwed and there will be heavy fines. So the expectation is that even if cage fights will have rules, Musk is not going to abide by them. A disqualification of this tech billionaire is therefore very plausible.

Zuck

The polls are in, and it is expected that Zuck will not fare well in the fight either. Martial arts is known for a mental battle, and several incidents have shown that the tech billionaire still has an awful lot of work to do there if he wants to emerge victorious.

For example, documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed that Zuck knew about the negative effects of Instagram on teenage girls, but decided to ignore it. Consequently, many experts say Zuck's arrogance could prove fatal to him in the cage fight.In the run-up, he is likely to ignore any injuries, which could put him through the ringer during the fight.

And those injuries, they are inevitably going to happen. Marks Meta is known to suffer frequent breakdowns. Zuck has tried hard to make as many people worldwide as possible depend on his platforms to a far-reaching degree, but drops them as soon as an outage occurs. For example, we all remember the WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook outage of Oct. 4, 2021. Predictably, then, Zuck will suddenly quit in the middle of the fight.

We know from the many court cases and political hearings that defense is Zuck's blind spot. He knows how to deliver raunchy blows himself (to our human rights) but as soon as he has to defend it, he loses the viewer's sympathy. Therefore, we would not be surprised if he will have to take a lot.

On whom shall we place our bets?

The conclusion seems clear to us: neither Musk nor Zuck has any chance of emerging victorious. With some degree of probability, we dare say that one of them will not show up, someone will drop out with an injury, someone will be disqualified or someone will go KO in the battle. And we think that's just as well. After all, X and Meta are companies that do not have users' best interests at heart, and therefore do not make a profit on any front.

Still, we expect it to be a great spectacle. You can bet money on gambling sites, of course, but if you're really for a downfall of these tech billionaires, donate to Bits of Freedom. We may not double your bet, but we'll improve your digital civil rights! And let's face it: what's worth more?