Who Will Win the Battle Between Elon vs. Zuck?

What is all about the big fight between both Elon and Zuckerberg? 

Okay, let’s discuss the Elon vs. Zuck fight on the cards.

As you can recall, in June, X owner Elon Musk tweeted that he was ready  “for a cage match” with Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg.

It is in response to the news that Meta was planning to launch a new X rival app ahead of the release of Threads.

 How is Zuckerberg responding to Musk’s invitation for a cage fight?

To the absolute surprise of many, Zuckerberg, who has been getting more into MMA lately, responded that Musk sent a location. He is implying that he is ready for an actual fight.

What’s ensued is a ridiculous back-and-forth between the two, as Elon has used the potential competition to grab more attention and likely get more users to X.

A week after this initial exchange, Musk claimed that there was some chance that the contest could be held in the Colosseum in Rome.

He also said he had spoken to Italian officials about hosting the fight at the historic venue. Italy’s Ministry of Culture denied this.

A week after that, Musk re-shared an image of himself in training with MMA fighters.

So, both multi-billionaires were training. A fight might likely happen. Then things went quiet for a few weeks on the Elon v Musk front, as sense seemed to prevail briefly on both.

Things kicked up again last week, with Musk posting that he is lifting weights throughout the day and preparing himself for the fight.

Elon then claimed that the fight would be live-streamed on X, with all proceeds going to charity. He also further implied that solid arrangements were now in place.

But Zuckerberg quickly denied this and has denied all of Musk’s various implications.

Was Elon serious about the fight, or was it all for the show or just a publicity stunts to generate attention?

Elon has since clarified that he will likely need shoulder surgery before the fight. It will require months of recovery. Musk’s public statements on the potential fight have been a publicity stunt.

These stunts were designed to drive more interest in his budding social media empire. Musk plans actually to go ahead with the bout at all or not.

He has known that he is physically unable to take part, so it is another part of the Elon circus that he uses to eat up media attention and then deflect that to his various business interests.

No matter how you feel about the man, he is very good at staging publicity stunts that gather mass public attention. All along, in his tenure at Twitter/X, Musk has been able to keep getting attention.

It has likely helped prop up the platform’s numbers and keep people returning to the app.

There is a reason why Tesla does not pay for advertising. It is because Elon himself is such a lightning rod for the media that he can get his businesses mass media coverage without having to pay for it. It also aligns with his cost-minimization management approach.

Essentially, as noted by Platformer’s Casey Newton, Elon uses business media’s established processes against them to gain mass coverage.

He can do so by stretching the truth and straight-up lying or coming up with outlandish comments that trigger a frenzy online.

Newton says that It is like business journalism to assume that CEOs of public companies are sometimes lying.

He further states that Musk makes frequent and bold pronouncements about his companies, politics and the nature of consciousness to gather attention. All these statements are irresistible to editors.

Newton suggests editors should employ a more sceptical approach and question more of Musk’s outlandish claims.

It is the only way to stop him from using the mainstream outlets he claims to despise and to keep getting more attention.

It is entirely correct. There is seemingly no prospect that an Elon v Musk fight will ever happen. Yet, even people within his extended orbit are getting asked about it in their media interviews and coverage.

This week, X CEO Linda Yaccarino and his ex-wife Grimes were asked their thoughts on the bout. It gave more column space to Musk’s latest bid for attention.

It is working, given that most media outlets are now writing about it.

But Some people have resisted covering it for this reason. It is not authentic, and Elon is just using this as the latest button to push to trigger the media hype cycle.

Next week it will be some other crazy thing, then another the week after that, and this cycle will continue forever.

In this sense, Elon has taken inspiration from the Trump book of media relations, which seems to be working.

Various studies have shown that the only valuable indicator of electoral success in social media metrics is mention volume, i.e., if your name is getting discussed the most in social apps, you will win the election.

Sentiments like, followers and all have failed to indicate election outcomes accurately. But, pure ‘mention volume’ of an individual or company is a consistent indicator of success, as straightforward a metric as it might be.

In this context, it pays to be an attention seeker. It pays to be the one who says the things that get the most people talking because that expanded discussion is generally all you need to occupy the public consciousness. That’s how media influences how they vote.

Elon is taking the same approach; to keep his social media platform afloat, he reflects attention back to his posts, Sparking more in-app engagement.

From selling verification ticks to letting previously banned users back in the app, backing up COVID conspiracy theories, and promoting LSD, Elon can do anything to gain attention.

Whenever engagement seems to wane, Elon emerges with another controversial comment or action, and the media cycle kicks in to help him again.

The question then is whether he can keep saying and doing enough things to keep getting attention. Thus far, he has proven again and again that he definitely can.

Will that be enough to keep X relevant at all times?

It is hard to trust the reported usage numbers of the X app due to Elon’s affinity for misinformation. But he claims that usage is rising. It will essentially, at this stage, be a reflection of his attention-grabbing capacity.

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