Business

The Tech Company Brief by Hackernoon: Zuck vs. Musk: Who will win?

The journey of a thousand punches begins with a tweet.

What may have started out as an inconspicuous comment by an unsuspecting social media user has morphed into a full-blown chest thumping match between Twitter owner Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — exhibiting just how badly tech billionaires want to beat the sh*t out of each other.

It all started, as it always does, in a twitter thread. Fuming with (what we’re assuming is) anger over reports that Zukcerberg is developing a Twitter copy cat (which, btw., HackerNoon reported mooooooonths ago and followed-up with more details the week before last, you’re welcome), Musk decided to take a dig at both the upcoming rival platform and the comments a Meta executive made when touting the project to employees.

In response, a Twitter user joked that Musk better watch out because Zuckerberg knows ju jitsu, implying Meta’s billionaire CEO could kick his ass. Never the one to back down from a challenge, Musk decided to indulge the user. And well, the rest is history:

Yup, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match, and within 24 hours, the Facebook co-founder took to Instagram (which he also owns btw.) to accept the summons to contest, asking the Tesla owner to send him the location.

And so, Musk did.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the internet lost its collective mind, with more and more articles popping up every day on whether a cage fight would actually happen and who would actually win. With more training and age on his side, Zuckerberg is the clear favorite in betting circles, though experts haven’t ruled out Musk completely. And if the match does happen, it could bring in over a $1 billion — as if the world’s richest men needed to be richer still. But the currency Zuckerberg craves the most is respect.

The animosity the tech billionaires, and also the world’s richest men, have shown each other this past week is not random. It might seem abrupt, but there’s actually a history between the two. In fact, Musk has a habit of pissing his fellow tech billionaires off, including, by sleeping with their wives.

While the billionaires duke it out in an MMA ring, a bigger fight is raging between their social media platforms. A recent report from The New York Times said Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue dropped 59% year-over-year, during a five-week period starting April 1, as advertisers jumped ship. In fact, Twitter’s global ad revenue this year is estimated to be 28% lower than it was in 2022, at around $3 billion, according to an estimate by research firm Insider Intelligence, Forbes reported.

By comparison, Meta is flying high. The company is expected to generate $121.9 billion in revenue during 2023, a cool $10 billion more than in 2022, with even more coming in 2024, according to Insider Intelligence.

No wonder, then, Zuckerberg wants to capture advertisers disillusioned by Twitter’s direction, and Musk wants to trade blows with the young CEO to iron things out.

Facebook ranked #12 on HackerNoon’s Tech Company Rankings this week. Instagram was #4 and Tesla was on the #6 spot.

In Other News.. 📰

Spywares are bad. Here’s why: the Polish developer of a phone tracking app called LetMeSpy said a hacker gained unauthorized access to its data, making it the latest in a long list of companies that have been hacked, breached, or exposed victim’s data.
Unicorn social app IRL is shutting down after admitting 95% of its users were fake, TechCrunch reports.
Google’s YouTube wants to try its hand in cloud gaming.
Parents will now have more control over what teens see and do over Instagram and Messenger.
Apple says proposed UK law ‘poses a serious threat’ to end-to-end encryption, The Verge reported.
IBM will acquire technology spend-management platform Apptio from Vista Equity Partners for $4.6 billion in cash, in the latest deal to bolster its capabilities in cloud and automation, Reuters reported.