Mark and Elon are so competitive, especially but not exclusively with each other, that in 2023 was serious talk about a cage match. Rumor has it that it was Musk who slunk away, fearing that Zuckerberg, known in recent years for being deadly serious about being seriously fit, including in the martial arts, would humiliate him.
Mark and I have not chatted in recent weeks. But it appears that Elon’s incessant proximity to President-elect Donald Trump, and Elon’s relentless megalomania, is getting to Zuck. Driving Zuck so nuts he’s doing what he can to assert that if he’s not King of the Hill at least he’s Co-King.
It’s true: Musk is taking chutzpah to new lengths. The richest man in the world is now wearing, on top of all his other hats, that of foreign policy czar. Musk is interfering – actively, aggressively – in major political battles now not only at home but abroad. In Britain, for example, he has already made clear his electoral agenda: to oust incumbent Prime Minister Kier Starmer and install sooner not later a government decisively to the right of center. And in Germany Musk is doing no less than engineering a break, or trying to, with what had been haloed post-war German tradition: not to swerve too far to the right. German elections will be held in just over a month – with Musk now loudly supporting the far-right chancellor-candidate. Her name is Alice Weidel. She leads the AfD, Germany’s far-right party, recently become the second largest in Germany.
Because Musk’s wealth, Musk’s power, Musk’s visibility, and Musk’s proximity are more than Zuck can handle he’s reinventing himself, again. Zuckerberg is moving to the right where he can. He is bending his knee when he can. And he is becoming as manly as he can – even more manly than he was before, if such a thing is possible.
What signaling was desired or required happened where the gods wanted it to – on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
First, Mark took on Tim. That would be Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. Mark said that Apple had long ago stopped innovating. Mark said that Apple had “random rules.” And Mark said that Apple was “squeezing people for money.” Is it relevant that Cook was the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to come out as gay (in 2014)? Absolutely, positively, out-of-any-question not.
Second, Zuckerberg opined that corporate America had, heaven forefend, become “culturally neutered.” In virtually the same breath he implied that all that cultural neutering was largely the result of DEI, which was limp, namby-pamby, not the macho stuff of which great companies are made.
Third, Mark credited the “masculine culture” of the martial arts for making a man out of him. A real man as opposed to a fake man. A full man as opposed to only half a man. Having an activity with his male friends during which they all can, literally, “beat each other,” had been good for him, Mark insisted. It was a “positive experience.” Then he added, “I think having a culture that celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive.”
Finally, in case anyone missed his claim to being the manliest man on the planet Mark came right out and said it: corporate America should have more “masculine energy.” Right, just what the United States needs. Just what the world needs. More “masculine energy.”
I want to be fair here. During his chitchat with Joe, Mark pointed out that he had been surrounded by women all his life – after all, he has three sisters and three daughters. Mark avowed that “you want women to be able to succeed.” But exactly how they can succeed in a corporate culture that was any more “masculine” than it already is – 90% of Fortune 500 companies are led by men – remained for women to figure out.
Anyway, we, we women, were beside the point. Mark Zuckerberg talking to Joe Rogan was all about men and masculinity – with Mark strutting his stuff if not literally then sure as shooting figuratively.