While the cage match between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk has yet to be finalized, the battle between their respective companies is just getting started, as Zuckerberg’s Meta is expected to launch a rival to Musk’s Twitter this week.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is set to launch its new site, Threads, described as a “text-based conversation app” on Thursday.
A website for the app currently has a countdown to Thursday morning, with links to the app’s new Apple App Store page.
“Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” according to the App Store page.
The description continues, describing how users can “connect directly” with creators and those with common interests or “build a loyal following” of their own to share ideas, opinions, and creativity.
Chris Cox, Meta’s Chief Product Officer, called the app “our response to Twitter” in a company-wide meeting last month, The Verge reported.
“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution,” Cox said at the time, The Verge reported.
The decision to launch a competitor to Twitter comes as the company continues to face struggles, most recently one that involved placing temporary limits on how many tweets users could per day due to strain on the company’s servers.
It’s been several months since Musk took over the company, and despite thousands of layoffs and constant changes to the platform’s operations and services, it still appears to be struggling.
However, Twitter isn’t alone, as Meta has also had its own problems as of late.
To start the year, Meta eliminated thousands of jobs as Zuckerberg described the company’s struggles as a “humbling wake-up call.”
“The world economy changed, competitive pressures grew, and our growth slowed considerably,” Zuckerberg said earlier this year.
The move also comes after Zuckerberg and Musk got into a back-and-forth on Twitter and Instagram about a potential fight between the two.
“I’m up for a cage match if he is,” Musk tweeted while Zuckerberg responded on Instagram with, “Send Location.”
While many assumed they were joking, the president of the UFC, Dana White, shared that Zuckerberg texted him after the post from Musk, inquiring about his help setting up the match.
“Both guys are absolutely dead serious about this. They both want to do it. Mark Zuckerberg hit me up first and said, ‘Is he serious?’” White said.
White says he asked Musk, who claimed to be up for the face-off against his head rival in the social media world.
“These guys would raise, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars for charity, and you know, you don’t have to be a big fight fan to be interested in this fight,” White said.
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