Video shows moment Mark Zuckerberg lost controversial jiu jitsu match that sent Meta in a PR spin

Mr Zuckerberg’s coach said the referee mistook the tech billionaire’s ‘effortful grunting’ for snoring

A Meta representative has denied CEO Mark Zuckerberg was knocked out during a Brazilian jiu-jitsu match last month.

The 39-year-old tech billionaire took part in his first Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament, the BJJ Tour, held in Woodside, California, earlier this month.

In a piece chronicling Mr Zuckerberg’s martial arts journey, The New York Times reported Mr Zuckerberg “defeated an Uber engineer, won two medals, and lost consciousness” during one of the matches.

The article quoted the match’s referee, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu veteran, José Lucas Costa da Silva, who said he stopped the bout when he heard Mr Zuckerberg appear to snore during a chokehold – a sign he was reportedly out cold.

Shortly after, the reporter Joseph Bernstein tweeted that Mr Zuckerberg and his coach Dave Camarillo had reached out to him to clarify the tech entrepreneur had not been knocked out during the match.

Bernstein’s tweet read: “They both insisted that Mr Zuckerberg had *not* lost consciousness, and the coach said that the referee had mistaken his effortful grunting for snores.”

Subsequently, Meta spokesperson Elana Widmann, in an email to The Daily Beast, reiterated that “at no point” during the BJJ Tour was Mr Zuckerberg knocked out.

“That never happened,” Ms Widmann wrote, adding a Meta spokesperson at the event witnessed the referee apologise to Mr Zuckerberg and his coach “for prematurely calling the match”.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a combat martial art form in which fighters try and take their opponent to the ground and use different techniques to force them into submission (such as a chokehold).

Mr Costa previously told Bloody Elbow, a news website covering mixed martial arts and combat sports, that Mr Zuckerberg had “choked out” during the bout.

Published four weeks ago, Mr Costa’s interview read: “That was the video you saw. I stopped it and he wanted to check with me about why I stopped it. He didn’t know what was happening, which was one of the reasons I stopped it.

“But he had started to snore and the rule set says that snoring is a version of a verbal tap,” Mr Costa added, explaining he was “paying even more attention because it was Mark”.

“He got caught in an Ezekiel and I waited, but he didn’t fight back. And I was waiting, but on the third snore I had to stop the fight. He was very polite but he wanted to know how the rules work,” the referee continued.

Jeff Ibrahim, 40, a California man who started the combat sport last winter was the fighter who Mr Zuckerberg competed against in the bout and explained to NPR what happened with the choke hold.

“I wasn’t going to let go of it until one, he tapped out, or two, the referees stopped me. And I felt that he never tapped out. I couldn’t tell if he was making any noises or anything. ... I was just in the zone. I mean, he was trying to get out of it, but like the grip that he had on me, it just kept getting looser and looser,” Mr Ibrahim said.

And he said that after the fight the billionaire seemed unsure why the fight had been stopped.

“Mark was confused originally, then that’s when the referee explained it to him. And then he just shook his head and like, ‘OK, I got it. I understand.’ We shook hands. Gave a little bro hug,” added Mr Ibrahim.