It’s only natural to feel like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk should be the best of friends. In addition to being a part of the small circle of the richest people in the world, they also share a deep love for all things tech alongside an unbreakable entrepreneurial spirit. Unfortunately, no amount of common ground can bridge the gap between these two. Their rift apparently began in 2016 when a SpaceX rocket exploded during a pre-launch test and obliterated the $200 million Facebook satellite it was supposed to safely deliver to space.
Advertisement
Zuckerberg made no attempt to hide his annoyance at the failure, and swiftly shared a Facebook post admitting that he was “deeply disappointed” by the technical failure because the satellite could have provided better Internet access to countless people all around the globe. Meanwhile, the Tesla co-founder only addressed the incident in a short post on X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2018, conceding simply, “Yeah, my fault for being an idiot.” However, Musk added, “We did give them a free launch to make up for it and I think they had some insurance.”
It’s worth noting that a commentator under Zuckerberg’s Facebook post questioned if they had insurance, and he reasoned in response that his primary concern wasn’t the financial loss but the delay in providing connectivity to valued customers. After that initial blow-up, the feud only got worse, and eventually it became a strange thing about Musk’s life that everyone ignores. To get a better understanding of one of Musk’s messiest feuds, we tapped into the expertise of Susan Trombetti, matchmaker and CEO of Exclusive Matchmaking.
Advertisement
Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk may fundamentally be too different
Exclusively speaking to The List, matchmaker Susan Trombetti argued that although Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg may dislike each other, each should still be able to appreciate all the hard work that the other put into their climb to the top. Additionally, she professed that Musk and Zuckerberg shared a couple of notable similarities that could bridge the gap between them, such as being trailblazers in tech who went against the grain and having strong (but conflicting) opinions about AI. Although the pair have been embroiled in a public feud for years, we saw a great example of their underlying respect in January 2025 when Zuckerberg praised Musk for X’s new fact-checking system.
Advertisement
According to Business Insider, the social media network founder stated, “I’m not afraid to admit when someone does something that’s better than us. It’s our job to implement the best system.” However, their few similarities can’t make up for all the glaring differences between the two businessmen. Trombetti professed that Zuckerberg was more introverted, while his rival wasn’t ever afraid to share his controversial takes with the world on social media. Additionally, she believed that Musk and Zuckerberg had fundamentally different approaches to business.
Trombetti asserted that the SpaceX co-founder is evidently an “extremist” since he didn’t hesitate to implement widespread layoffs at X immediately after taking it over. His space travel venture also proved that Musk was more of a “risk taker.” In contrast, “Zuckerberg is more methodical in his business strategies and it’s limited in my opinion to social media.” And the two billionaires’ actions have proven her word true time and time again.
Advertisement
Elon Musk has poked fun at Facebook several times
It’s worth keeping in mind that Elon Musk didn’t hesitate to publicly kick Mark Zuckerberg when he was already down. In March 2018, the New York Times and the Observer published a report revealing that Cambridge Analytica, a UK-based political consulting firm where Donald Trump’s chief White House strategist Steve Bannon held an executive position, utilized a massive breach of privacy using Facebook user information. As a whistleblower informed the Observer, “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons.” As worried users pondered whether their data was truly safe on the social networking giant, Musk only added more fuel to the fire.
Advertisement
After WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton urged everybody to delete Facebook in a tweet, Musk snarked, “What’s Facebook?” Additionally, when another X user urged him to delete Tesla and SpaceX’s pages on the platform, the billionaire quipped that he wasn’t even aware they existed but would promptly get them off the platform. And he stuck to his word. However, the former PayPal co-owner shared an X post to clarify his motives for exiting Facebook, writing, “It’s not a political statement and I didn’t do this because someone dared me to do it. Just don’t like Facebook. Gives me the willies. Sorry.”
Although the dust settled on the scandal a few months later, Musk continued to stir things up. After “Borat” star Sacha Baron Cohen shared a tweet supporting stricter government regulations for the Zuckerberg-founded social media networking site, Musk encouraged people to uninstall the app altogether, writing, “It’s lame.”
Advertisement
He has called out Facebook for their alleged malpractices
Elon Musk has made it abundantly clear, on multiple occasions, that he greatly distrusts Facebook. After Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist of Meta, called the Tesla co-founder out for failing to curb election misinformation on X in January 2024, he offered an icy response: “Are you aware that Mark Zuckerberg, presumably a ‘proper-runner’ of social networks, funded illegal voting vans in the last election?” Meanwhile, in a September 2023 tweet, Musk quoted a Politico article detailing an advertiser’s boycott against Facebook and slammed the platform for supposedly allowing the far left to control their policies in order to gain more ad revenue from them.
Advertisement
Likewise, in another X post from July 2024, Musk criticized both Instagram and Facebook for seemingly tricking advertisers into thinking their ad revenues were 400% higher than the real number. In a separate tweet, he denounced the two social media platforms for making money from the traffic that X sent their way. Then, when a commentator wondered why the Meta founder didn’t face any legal consequences for the supposedly widespread child exploitation on his super popular social media platforms, Musk answered, “Because he already caved into censorship pressure.”
He continued, “Instagram has a massive child exploitation problem, but no arrest for Zuck, as he censors free speech and gives governments backdoor access to user data.” In April 2024, the divisive businessman made it clear once again that he sees Zuckerberg’s social media platform as a thing of the past by comparing it to an AOL email address. In fact, in an August 2024 tweet, Musk even claimed that Facebook wouldn’t be around in 2030.
Advertisement
The two billionaires became direct competitors in 2023
Although Mark Zuckerberg remained relatively silent about his feelings on Elon Musk and their supposed feud for the most part, the tech billionaire made his dislike for him evident by launching X competitor Threads in July 2023. Although Zuckerberg understandably stays off X for the most part, he tweeted a popular meme of two Spider-Men pointing at each other to poke fun at his latest, and most obvious, direct competitor. The new social media platform started gaining traction moments after its launch and gained 2 million sign-ups in two hours, according to a Zuckerberg Threads post. To say that Musk was displeased by Threads would be an understatement. According to Semafor, Alex Spiro, a lawyer at X, wrote a strongly worded letter to Zuckerberg where he threatened to take legal action against him.
Advertisement
The missive wildly posited that the Instagram owner’s team had deliberately hired several former X employees with a deeply-rooted knowledge of the application to create their version. “Meta’s copycat ‘Threads’ app with the specific intent that they use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app, in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter,” the corporation alleged in the letter. However, Andy Stone, communications director at Meta, denied ever having hired any ex-X employee for their team. Meanwhile, Musk tweeted that he was fine with a bit of healthy competition but he drew the line at cheating. In another equally salty tweet, he reasoned, “Threads is just Instagram minus pics.”
Advertisement
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were all set to face off in a cage match
Elon Musk took his childish feud with Mark Zuckerberg to a new low in June 2023 by suggesting on X that he wanted to have a cage match with him. Although the SpaceX co-founder’s rival has let his snarky remarks slide in the past, he decided to make an exception and be petty for once, too. Zuckerberg shared an Instagram Story featuring a screenshot of Musk’s tweet, captioning it, “Send Me Location,” per the New York Post. The following month, Zuckerberg showed off his complete transformation with a shirtless photo of him training hard alongside two iconic MMA fighters, Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski.
Advertisement
While this ostensibly seemed like the two billionaires were engaging in a joke of sorts, that may not have been the case since UFC president Dana White confirmed to the New York Times in July 2023 that Zuckerberg had indeed reached out to him to enquire about whether his opponent wanted to brawl for real. After White connected with the other tech CEO, he learned that Musk was on the same page and started coordinating the event.
However, when The Verge asked Zuckerberg if he would ever seriously have a cage match with the X owner, he essentially said he would like more of a challenge. In contrast, when a reporter asked Musk for his thoughts, in July 2024, he bragged, “I’ll fight Zuckerberg any place, any time, any rules.” However, his opponent evidently didn’t want to play his little games anymore and took to Threads to ask, “Are we really doing this again?”
Advertisement
