Elon Musk Revives Feud With Mark Zuckerberg

The two billionaires are at the head of popular social networks competing for advertisers' money.

Elon Musk thrives on rivalry and criticism. 

He finds motivation in the doubts that his detractors cast against him. 

The serial entrepreneur sometimes gives the impression that he is looking for enemies. Among the Silicon Valley luminaries, there are very few he hasn't attacked or criticized. 

He nevertheless reserves his powerful strikes for those he considers his direct rivals. This is the case of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta Platforms  (META) - Get Free Report, parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. 

Musk and Zuckerberg have certainly often found themselves on the same side to denounce the 30% commission charged by Apple on its AppleStore, but the two tycoons have a testy relationship. 

The CEO of Tesla  (TSLA) - Get Free Report did not hesitate to nickname his billionaire peer "Zuck the Fourteenth," in an apparent nod to the French king famous for his hubris and excess, Louis the XIV.

'Instagram Makes People Depressed'

He pushed back, last April, on a potential conflict of interest between him owning Twitter and being one of its most influential users, during a TED interview with Chris Anderson.

"I wouldn't personally be, you know, in their editing tweets. But you'll know if something was done to promote demo or otherwise affect a tweet," he told Anderson. "As for media sort of ownership, I mean, you've got, you know, Zuck work [at and owning] Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities. [We] certainly we won't have that at Twitter. If you commit to opening up the algorithm, that definitely gives some level of confidence."

In addition to directly attacking Zuckerberg, the serial entrepreneur regularly goes after Instagram, one of the jewels of his rival's social media empire. 

He has just opposed Instagram head-on to Twitter, the social network he acquired for $44 billion at the end of October and which he is in the process of revamping to make it one of the centerpieces of X, the super app that he aims to build.

He mainly questions the role of the two platforms and their impact on society.

"Instagram makes people depressed & Twitter makes people angry," the billionaire wrote on January 15. "Which is better?"

Many Twitter users commented that the platform was socially better than Instagram.

"Twitter doesn’t make me angry," commented a Twitter user. "It makes me laugh all day long.Tip: unfollow all politicians and media 'reporters.'"

"I do laugh a lot on Twitter haha," Musk responded.

This isn't the first time Musk has complained about what he sees as Instagram's negative social impact.

"Instagram is an envy amplifier," the billionaire warned last September.

A scathing criticism he repeated last December. 

"Instagram is an underpaid, online modeling agency," Musk warned on Dec. 23.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

'They're Very Sad'

Instagram can become a real source of lack of self-confidence for some, critics of the social network usually say. Comparison to others, the desire to live a dream daily life can lead to poor self-esteem. 

This social network was created to share beautiful photographs, which leads some to sell only dreams. But critics warn that Instagram in no way reflects real life. Almost all of the photos that you see circulating on the platform have been edited before their publication, they say.

Musk has been warning for several years now about the dangers of picture-perfect images released by influencers and users on Instagram.

"One of the issues with social media, it's been pointed out by many people is that I think maybe particularly Instagram, people look like they have a much better life than they really do," the tech mogul told podcaster Joe Rogan in 2020. "People are posting pictures of when they're really happy. They're modifying those pictures to be better looking. If they're not modifying the pictures, or at least selecting the pictures for the best lighting, the best angle. So, people basically seem they're way better looking than they basically really are. And they're way happier than they really are."

He added that: "So if you look at everyone on Instagram, you might think, 'man, they're all these happy, beautiful people. And I'm not that good looking and I'm not happy so I must suck'. When in fact, those people you think are super happy, actually are not that happy. Some of them are really depressed. They're very sad."