Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg: a rivalry that goes beyond Twitter and Threads

Rivalries are common in life, work and, even more so, in the business world. Millionaires like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates used to attack each other, but can you imagine a cage match between Elon Musk and mark zuckerberg, two of the most important leaders in the technology industry? Although it sounds crazy, it is something that could happen, in fact, advisers from both sides are preparing the details for what would be the fight of the year with the mediation of none other than Dana White, president of the UFC, according to media reports such as “The New York Times”.

The preparations for the combat are underway, and only the passing of days will confirm if it will really take place on the agreed date: July 27. However, it seems that the founder of Meta has struck the first blow in anticipation of the meeting. Your company has just released Threads, a new app that bills itself as “an open and welcoming platform for debate”, in the words of Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram. This app largely emulates the architecture of Twitter and in less than 24 hours since its launch, it already has more than 30 million registered users.

LOOK: Threads is also available for Android phones: How to download the Meta app?

Although we cannot say that the blow has knocked out the businessman who owns Tesla, it seems that it has definitely affected him. Despite his well-known loquacity on Twitter, the tycoon has remained silent so far. The CEO of the social network, Linda Yaccarino, came out in defense of her team and commented in a tweet: “We are often imitated, but the Twitter community can never be duplicated”.

On Twitter, everyone’s voice matters.

Whether you’re here to watch history unfold, discover REAL-TIME information all over the world, share your opinions, or learn about others — on Twitter YOU can be real.

YOU built the Twitter community. ???????? And that’s irreplaceable. Este…

— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) July 6, 2023

Finally Musk reacted, and very much in his style. According to the AFP agency, in a letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, published on Thursday by the online news outlet Semafor, Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, accused the company of “illegal misappropriation of Twitter trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

Threads is the new Instagram app that competes with Twitter.

The letter accused Meta of hiring dozens of former employees of Musk’s company who “had and continue to have access to Twitter trade secrets and other highly confidential information.”

“The Verge” deputy editor Alex Heath said he had access to documents from Meta that stated that They took advantage of the controversy in the rival social network caused by limiting the number of tweets that users can see per day. That was the catalyst to anticipate the arrival of Threads.

Some of the advantages of the new platform are: texts of up to 500 characters –Twitter only allows 280–, videos of up to five minutes in length and greater control over mentions. In addition, the new network does not start from scratch, on the contrary, it works in partnership with Instagram, the user uses his own account to register and can choose to keep all his contacts.

Zuckerberg has not yet thought of monetizing the app – unlike Twitter, which is already moving in that direction – his priority is to reach one billion users registered in Threads, he will see that possibility later.

enmity of years

Although the ring is starting to heat up, the rivalry between these two millionaires is not recent.

The relationship between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg began to deteriorate in 2016, when a SpaceX rocket explosion destroyed a Facebook satellite. On that occasion, Mark said he was “deeply disappointed” for the failure of SpaceX.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook (now Meta). (AFP/)

In 2017, when the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) was coming, the two businessmen had disagreements about the role of said technology. In a Facebook Live, Zuckerberg noted: “I have fairly strong opinions on this subject.” “Especially with AI I am very optimistic and I think that people who are naysayers or try to create doomsday scenarios… I don’t understand them. It’s negative and in some ways I think it’s quite irresponsible.”.

LOOK: Threads: how is the Meta app that seeks to compete with Twitter?

His comment referred to the position of Musk, who did not welcome the unregulated advance of AI. “I’ve spoken to Mark about this,” he said in response to a tweet about Zuckerberg’s comments. “Your understanding of the subject is limited”he expressed.

In 2018, after the scandal of Cambridge Facebook Analytics, In which the company was accused of inappropriately sharing the data of 87 million users with the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytic, Elon Musk did his thing by delete SpaceX and Tesla accounts from Facebook.

Elon Musk, owner of Twitter. (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP) (ALAIN JOCARD /)

Two years later, the South African businessman urged Facebook users to remove the app, this after the British actor Sacha Baron Cohen expressed his concern that a company had access to information from 2.5 billion people.

fight of millions

The feud between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk also has to do with their egos. Although the founder of Tesla is in second place on the list of the richest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of 180,000 million dollars, and the leader of Meta is in position 16, with a fortune of 64,000 million, the two have the distinction of being the people with the highest earnings so far this year.

Musk increased his assets by 96.6 billion dollars until June 30, while Mark Zuckerberg added a total of 58.9 billion dollars. Both Tesla and Meta shares have appreciated on the stock market.

Source: Elcomercio