Musk is a lot older than Zuckerberg so I think it would be a stupid decision for him. Plus we need Musks’s mind. Suckerberg not so much.

Isn’t it just the same as the move towards tanned skin being attractive when foreign travel was the preserve of the rich?

Proper training is something only an athlete or a very wealthy person has the time to do.

This is just another status signal.

You’ve missed a very important but related dimension true across many Western men in their late 30s/40s, particularly white collar knowledge workers; the search for purpose and manhood they fear has shriveled sat in front of a computer. It happened to me. Boxing / Fighting – real boxing – not city gym pretence – reconnects you with guys and cultures you may not have connected with for a long time. There’s nothing to compare with the excitement of the first time you’re punched in the face, and then, inevitably much later, when you evade and serve it back. You know again that you’re alive and engaged with the world. I highly recommend it.

“…high-profile figures from the digital realm have been donning boxing gloves and stepping into the ring, to square off in physical matches. This isn’t the scripted amateur wrestling of the past, as in WrestleMania’s “Battle of the Billionaires”. These are real, bare-knuckle brawls…”

Bare-knuckle brawls with boxing gloves? Or just hype that allows the author to miss this contradiction? Some interesting points are being made about masculinity, but it also made me wonder how female tech entrepreneurs are meant to engage in this farce. Or maybe that’s also the point.

Disclaimer: this comment was made without the permission of N Satori, for which i profoundly apologise.

Boxing was part of the British boys education until 1965 when a woman Labour MP had it removed from state schools.
A Bryant ” Search for Justice ” p6, para 3 ” Boxing was the nursery manliness. A gentleman was expected to be proper man with fists and know to clear a lane of men with his morleys”. In the early 19 th century a gentleman was taught to fight bare knuckle ( included throws), fight with cudgels and swords, shoot and ride to hounds.
p7 ” within the framework of law and property the English rule was that a man should look after himself and have the freedom to do so. ”
Pre WW2 boys would have boxed, played rugby, cricket,various racket sports, swum in cold water and rowed if school was on a river. Wilfred Thesiger DSO won four blues for boxing at Oxford, Paddy Blair Mayne DSO and 3 bars was heavy weight boxer and rugby player.
American writers appear to have problem apprehending that a person may be academically bright and physically tough; why?
What concerns me about this type of article is that it it does not explain the difference between a well regulated boxing match where people wear gloves and a street fight.

I’m sorry, I didn’t read the article. I am just here to say that this Zuckerberg vs. Musk stunt is the saddest and stupidest thing to have been burped out of our fast-declining Western civilisation for a long, long time. And it summarises that decline perfectly.
Two middle-aged white male megageeks who should know better slugging it out over whose social media pltform is best – which is really just a metaphor for a battle over whose ego is biggest.
God help us all.
What’s next? Boris mud-wrestling with Harriet Harman (sorry about that mental image, folks)? Prince Harry interviewing Putin about emotional neglect in childhood? Oh, wait…

I would literally pay to see Musk and Zuckerberg fight. They are both geeks – but they are also both extremely competitive and motivated. It would be interesting to see whether that would translate into skill in the ring.

All that would be needed was an old hat pin to puncture his ego….

Any geek worth his calculator understands that technology, read brains, beats brawn, and not just in the fullness of time.
That said, I have been trying to convince the wife for 20 years that I was a jock in school. So far no success though.

We may be overthinking things a bit. This spectacle reminds me of a lot, if not most, of the men I’m around at this point in my life. I’m seeing almost *everyone* succumb to some type of mid-life crisis. It is almost as if all of my acquaintances are following some type of late-40s insecurity cookbook: buy large, loud, very expensive truck or “muscle” car (even though there was nothing wrong with the one you just bought 2-4 years ago), start lifting heavy/popping protein and aminos and all sorts of supplements (without any consideration as to long-term health effects of any of this activity), file for a divorce. It is really sad to watch.

The author over-intellectualises the topic greatly and unnecessarily in my view. A physical threat is one of the most primeval things in human life. Fear and domination are some of the most fundamental things living beings experience. These billionaires, having tried most other things, are looking for ways to get new thrills. What better way than to conquer your primeval fears? Dominating a peer in a primeval domain in front of millions has to be one of the biggest thrills these men can chase. I completely understand its draw.