Two of the world’s richest and influential males, who occur to run rival social media networks, appeared to goad one another into agreeing to a battle, setting their platforms abuzz on the notion of a “cage match” between the billionaires.

Elon Musk, who continuously posts jokes and provocations on Twitter, which he purchased for $44 billion final 12 months, this week responded to tweets a couple of potential competing service by Meta, run by Mark Zuckerberg, by saying, “I’m up for a cage match if he is.”

On Instagram, the social community owned by Meta, Mr. Zuckerberg responded with a screenshot of Mr. Musk’s tweet and the caption, “Send Me Location.”

It went on from there, in a distinguished demonstration of the defiant, combative tone of “bro” culture in Silicon Valley, although sparring on social media has not often, if ever, spilled into the bodily world.

A Meta spokeswoman stated Mr. Zuckerberg’s response “speaks for itself.” Twitter’s media workplace auto-responded to a request for remark with a poop emoji.

Last summer season, Mr. Zuckerberg stated that he had taken up Brazilian jujitsu. He has since posted several times about his coaching, together with photographs of with skilled fighters like Dave Camarillo and Michael Musumeci. Last month, Mr. Zuckerberg competed in his first Brazilian jujitsu occasion, in Woodside, Calif., the place he defeated an Uber engineer and received two medals.

Mr. Musk said, “I almost never work out.” He proposed that the battle be held at an arena in Las Vegas.

The two moguls have a historical past of butting heads — rhetorically, not bodily — over huge matters of their trade. Mr. Zuckerberg invited Mr. Musk to a dinner at his home in 2014 to attempt to persuade Mr. Musk that he was too alarmist concerning the threats of synthetic intelligence. Mr. Musk didn’t change his thoughts, and has continued to warn of the risks of A.I. Mr. Musk has stated that Instagram “makes people depressed” and that Facebook, additionally owned by Meta, “gives me the willies.”