Dana White gives inside scoop on talks of billionaire fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg
Forget Logan Paul versus Jake Paul, because could we really be in for the fight of the century? The idea of two tech bros lacing up their gloves and duking it out in the ring might seem like a wild one, but if you'd asked us a few years ago whether a YouTuber could win a boxing match against Mike Tyson, we'd probably have laughed you out of the room.
Elon Musk has plenty of powerful frenemies, and although he appears to have quashed some of his beef with Jeff Bezos, he recently went to court with Sam Altman over billions of dollars and OpenAI's mission statement.
When it comes to Mark Zuckerberg, the world's richest man has also thrown some (verbal) punches in the past, jumping on the #DeleteFacebook bandwagon, famously writing "Zuck is a cuck" when Threads was launched, and quickly challenging him to an actual penis-measuring competition. Sometimes the boys just need to get their aggression out, leading to a bizarre altercation when Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cage match
What are the origins of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg's cage match?
Back in the midst of 2023's Threads drama, Elon Musk took to X to write: "I’m up for a cage match if he is." Zuckerberg responded by sharing a screenshot of the tweet on the Meta-owned Instagram and joked, "Send Me Location." The whole exploded into an internet meme where no one was quite sure what was real or not, but back then, UFC president Dana White claimed (via The New York Times) he'd got a text from Zuckerberg about the legitimacy of the fight.
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In July 2023, White said he'd been "on the phone with those two until 12:45 in the morning," adding that "they both want to do it." As you might've noticed, that match never took place. At its peak, Musk said he'd spoken to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni about securing Rome's historic Colosseum as a fitting venue for the smackdown, but when an astronomical venue hire fee started doing the rounds, things quickly collapsed.
Talks fizzled out after Musk also said he required back surgery, and when Zuckerberg eventually said it was time to 'move on', Musk twisted the knife one last time by branding his tech rival a 'chicken'. The world did move on, but in June 2026, Dana White has finally confirmed what went down...or didn't.
Dana White speaks out on Musk vs Zuckerberg UFC fight
Speaking at the post-fight press conference for UFC Fight Night: Kyoji Horiguchi vs. Manel Kape, White explained that the Rome negotiations were true. When asked about what are the chances of seeing a fight at the Colosseum, White mused: "It's impossible because I was negotiating the deal with Zuckerberg and Musk. That was real. I was literally in my backyard for two weeks negotiating that fight. And they wanted the Colosseum."
Referring to a $150 million price tag for hiring the monument, White said that money would've gone into a fund to restore iconic buildings in Italy, which doesn't sound like a bad way to spend money for a guy that's worth $1 trillion.
In terms of whether we could see the fight rise from the ashes, White concluded: "Anybody that wants to put up the money for UFC to fight in the Colosseum, I'm in." He previously put his money on Zuckerberg, suggesting he'd beat the 'sh*t' out of Musk.
For those who don't know, Zuckerberg has a regular Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) training regimen, having trained with the likes of former UFC Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski and former Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya.
Not to break the illusion, but as a cage match is different from a cage fight because it's a scripted event for entertainment and the winner is decided ahead of time, Musk wouldn't be in any real danger.
While there's no evidence that Musk and Zuck are ready to reignite talks, White's latest comments could be just the spark we need.