Musk, Zuckerberg and the bitter battle for the future of social media

As the billionaires prepare to do battle – both literally and figuratively – experts tell Anthony Cuthbertson whether Threads will be a ‘Twitter killer’ or yet another Meta flop

Packing a punch: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have a combined net worth of $335bn (Getty/composite)

Just days after agreeing to a cage fight with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg was asked, “in the name of camaraderie”, to say something positive about his tech rival. After six seconds of silence, the best the Facebook founder could come up with was how Musk had “streamlined” Twitter by laying off more than 80 per cent of the company’s staff since taking it over last year.

Speaking on the Lex Fridman Podcast, Zuckerberg went on to list all the reasons he thought Twitter was a failure. “For whatever reason, I feel like Twitter has not lived up to what I would have thought its full potential should be,” he said. “I always thought that Twitter should have a billion people using it… The idea coupled with good execution should get there.”

His comments followed years of barbs between the billionaires, seemingly stemming from the moment Musk accidentally exploded Zuckerberg’s internet satellite. The pair now look set to go head to head in both a literal and figurative fight, with the launch of Meta’s Twitter rival Threads on Thursday preceding a potential MMA bout between the tech billionaires.