Brawny billionaires, pumped-up politicians: why powerful men are challenging each other to fights

Musk and Zuck challenged each other to a fight; the former House speaker allegedly shoved a colleague. It was a bumper year for male insecurity

The first rule of insecure masculinity fight club? Tell everyone about it. And I mean everyone. Tweet about it, talk to reporters, shout about it from the rooftops. Make sure the entire world knows that you are a big boy who could beat just about anyone in a fistfight.

Twenty twenty-three, as I'm sure you will have observed, was the year that tech CEOs stepped away from their screens and decided to get physical. Elon Musk, perennially thirsty for attention, was at the center of this embarrassing development. The 52-year-old - who challenged Vladimir Putin to single combat in 2022 - spent much of the year teasing the idea that he was going head-to-head with Mark Zuckerberg in a cage fight. At one point he suggested the fight would be held at the Colosseum in Rome.