Written by Finlay Mead

Mark Zuckerberg shared a topless photo of himself standing between two of the most successful modern MMA fighters of this generation: Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski.

Mark Zuckerberg, along with longtime rival Elon Musk, seem utterly incapable of keeping themselves out of the headlines these days: from their latest row over new platform Threads to their ongoing negotiations and macho brawling ahead of their much-hyped cage fight — both of which dropped amongst ongoing concerns around Musk’s ongoing ketamine use — the pair have really made the case for burly billionaires being the true rockstars of our time.

Now, Zuckerberg — usually considered the slightly quieter, reserved dark-horse type out of the pair — has made an uncharacteristically bare-faced flex in the form of a topless photo of himself, which he posted to Instagram after a training session with Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski, making it clear that Zuckerberg isn’t just here for a new physique; he’s looking to enlist the best help possible to get him ready and raring to go for the rumoured fight.

WATCH: Zuckerberg clearly takes his training seriously, and has done for some time…

The longstanding tension between Zuckerberg and Musk escalated further last week when Threads — Zuckerberg’s text-based social media platform and Twitter competitor (or rip-off, depending on your point of view) — was launched among a flurry of shady posts from both parties. Musk responded with characteristic trash talk, asking Zuckerberg for a literal “dick-measuring contest.”

This back-and-forth posturing has quickly become a never-ending hype-machine and many — this writer included — look forward to the proposed fight as a means of drawing a line under this altogether painful discourse.

I propose a literal dick measuring contest ?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2023

As reported by Business Insider, Adesanya captioned the three-slide post with veiled praise for Zuckerberg and how seriously he takes his training, perhaps as a much-needed riposte to Musk’s public announcement that he recently accepted an invitation from former UFC legend George St-Pierre to train together:

“No fugazi with Mark… This is serious business.”

Israel Adesanya

Zuckerberg has good reason to feel confident at the moment, beyond the washboard abs: Threads smashed ChatGPT’s hitherto unprecedented growth rate by amassing a massive 100 million sign-ups within its first five days. However, whether or not the fight will actually happen remains uncertain. Dana White — president of the UFC — has expressed his willingness to help set up a pay-per-view event if both men are serious about their clash but, for now, the fight seems comfortably confined to the bounds of online boasting.

Many remain sceptical that the fight will ever occur. Musk’s biographer, Walter Isaacson — who recently revealed Musk’s now infamous “demon mode” — seems especially sceptical, believing that all the online posturing is concerned with building an algorithmically-backed hype machine around themselves and their respective businesses, rather than a good old-fashioned scrap.

Regardless of the outcome, what’s really interesting here is the way in which both Zuckerberg and Musk have managed to generate testosterone-fueled publicity that shifts focus away from their products and onto their physical prowess, suggesting that an almost “manospheric” belief that one’s success is both reflected in but also generated by its physical manifestation in the body has really taken hold of Silicon Valley’s ivory towers, a turn that should provoke as much serious concern as it does easy laughs.