Names and faces
■ Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg apparently are ready to fight. In a now-viral back-and-forth seen on Twitter and Instagram this week, the tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a “cage match” face-off. It all started when Musk, who owns Twitter, responded to a tweet about Meta reportedly preparing to release a new Twitter rival called “Threads.” He took a dig about the world becoming “exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options” — but then one Twitter user jokingly warned Musk of Zuckerberg’s jiu jitsu training. “I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk wrote. Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms, soon responded — and appeared to agree to Musk’s proposal. “Send me location,” Zuckerberg wrote on an Instagram story, which showed a screenshot of Musk’s tweet alongside another user’s response urging the Twitter owner to “start training.” Zuckerberg is actually trained in mixed martial arts. He posted about completing his first jiu jitsu tournament last month. In response to Zuckerberg’s location request, Musk proposed the Vegas Octagon. He then joked about his fighting skills and workout routine, suggesting the fight may not be serious. “I have this great move that I call ‘The Walrus’, where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing,” Musk wrote. Even if their cage match agreement is a joke, the banter gained attention, with an endless chain of memes and posts to “choose your fighter” springing up. “The story speaks for itself,” a Meta spokesperson said. Zuckerberg has not commented further. Twitter’s press email responded with a poop emoji, its standard automated response to reporters.
■ Geraldo Rivera has quit as one of the lonely liberal voices on Fox News’ popular political combat show “The Five,” saying this week that “a growing tension that goes beyond editorial differences” made it no longer worth it. The last scheduled appearance for the television veteran, whose 80th birthday is July 4, is next week. “It has been a rocky ride but it has also been an exhilarating adventure that spanned quite a few years,” he said. “I hope it’s not my last adventure.” Rivera said it was his choice to leave, but that Fox management “didn’t race after me to say, ‘Geraldo, please come back.’” Despite airing in the late afternoon, “The Five” has become Fox’s most-watched program, with an average of more than 3 million viewers last year. Its conceit is simple — five people, four of them conservative and one liberal — kick around the issues of the day. Greg Gutfeld, Jesse Watters, Dana Perino and Jeanine Pirro are the regular conservatives. Rivera has rotated as the liberal voice with Jessica Tarlov and Harold Ford Jr., a former congressman from Tennessee. Rivera said he planned to remain as a correspondent at-large at Fox, with a contract that expires in January 2025.