‘Like Watching National Geographic’: Mediaite’s Colby Hall Compares Zuckerberg-Musk to Territorial Gorillas After Threads Launch

With dueling social media networks, tit-for-tat taunts, and a possible actual fistfight in the offing, the battle between Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Elon Musk reminds Colby Hall of old National Geographic nature specials, the Mediaite founding editor told NewsNation’s Marni Hughes on Friday.

Meta’s launch of Threads — a Twitter-competing adjunct to Instagram that debuted this week — brought Zuckerberg out of Twitter retirement and elicited legal threats from Musk and Twitter, to add to the physical ones.

It’s big drama in Big Tech terms, and not unlike certain nature shows in the spectacle, said Hall, who also noted that there actually could be an upside to all this.

Following a report from NewsNation’s Sloane Glass on the billionaire spat, anchor Hughes asked Hall whether Round One of the brawl goes to Zuckerberg after the Threads launch racked up big numbers.

“I think so far, yes. Right now, it looks like Zuckerberg’s getting the better of Elon Musk,” said Hall. “But I have to tell you, watching that package that Sloane did just then, I kind of felt like I was watching an old National Geographic with Jane Goodall talking about silverback gorillas and being territorial.”

“I mean, it’s so like, the anthropology here it’s kind of crazy. That you have two of the most powerful and wealthiest men literally going head-to-head and using social media as a battle, which could all just be an undercard for this silly cage match, which is absurd and stupid, but wildly entertaining. And, you know, if that goes off, I’d pay for pay-per-view to watch Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg go at it, as silly as it sounds,” he said. “So yeah, there’s lots of personality, lots of drama. I think there’s a lot yet still to evolve.”

It isn’t all about the show, though. In addition to Musk’s claims that former Twitter employees joined Meta and basically used their insider knowledge to “steal” from Twitter, Hall pointed out that the enormous number of sign-ups, and the epic unpopularity of Musk’s rule at Twitter mean this has real-world consequences. Possibly to include, as Hughes noted, in the context of the 2024 election.

In the end, though, it’s possible this could all benefit the consumer, Hall said.

“It’s hard to say whether or not it will be truly the ‘Twitter Killer,'” he said of Threads. “I don’t think it will. But if it forces Elon Musk to make some changes and make Twitter a better product, then I think that’ll be good for everyone.”

MARNI HUGHES: And joining me now to talk more about this, Colby Hall, NewsNation media contributor and founding editor of Mediaite dot com. Colby, thank you. So, this is a billionaire tech brawl, right? On a lot of different levels. Round one, does this go to Zuckerberg with Threads?

COLBY HALL: I think so far, yes. Right now, it looks like Zuckerberg’s getting the better of Elon Musk. But I have to tell you, watching that package that Sloane did just then, I kind of felt like I was watching an old National Geographic with Jane Goodall talking about silverback gorillas and being territorial. I mean, it’s so like, the anthropology here it’s kind of crazy. That you have two of the most powerful and wealthiest men literally going head-to-head and using social media as a battle, which could all just be an undercard for this silly cage match, which is absurd and stupid, but wildly entertaining.

And, you know, if that goes off, I’d pay for pay-per-view to watch Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg go at it, as silly as it sounds. So yeah, there’s lots of personality, lots of drama. I think there’s a lot yet still to evolve.

HUGHES: Yep, and I guess I’m wondering, is it just a lot of ego, right? These billionaires battling out? Or is there a lot to lose in this tech battle of these two giants?

HALL: Well, that’s a great question, and I think the answer is both. I think — I think you don’t get to the position that you are in with Zuckerberg or Musk without an enormous ego. I mean, I think both are, it’s fair to call them megalomaniacs. But there’s also a business opportunity. And Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion, realized he overpaid, tried to get out of it, and then just you know, three or four months later said that it was worth $20 billion. And he’s cut a lot of costs, made a lot of changes and has sort of — Twitter was always something of a cesspool, but he’s kind of made the product much worse.

And, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, who came off of a pretty bad business decision in launching Metaverse, saw an opportunity and he seamlessly sort of rushed to market this Instagram version of Threads, which really kind of evokes an older version of Twitter. It’s, you know, all the people that you follow on Threads are your Instagram friends. So it’s wonderfully devoid of hate, bigotry, and bots.

And sort of it’s like traveling back to 2010 in a really nice way. It’s hard to say whether or not it will be truly the “Twitter Killer.” I don’t think it will. But if it forces Elon Musk to make some changes and make Twitter a better product, then I think that’ll be good for everyone.

HUGHES: Yeah, competition is good. I think. Zuckerberg says it feels like the beginning of something special, so we’ll see. But outside of the ring, the legal teams are already starting to battle this out. Musk and his team at Twitter are threatening legal action. They say “competition is fine, cheating is not.” So what are the grounds here? What are they claiming?

HALL: You know, it’s sort of above my pay grade to get into sort of the weeds here. They did file a cease and desist letter. And basically what they’re saying is that, you know, Zuckerberg hired or rather Meta hired a bunch of engineers that had been let go or laid off from Twitter and that that sort of intellectual property was used to rush Threads to market. Clearly, there are non-disclosure agreements and deals that were signed when these people were laid off.

Whether or not that information that was used was proprietary? I mean, that’s pretty deep-level coding that, you know, it’s hard to imagine a judge in a judicial system being, you know, sort of versed enough in that sort of coding to make — I think it’s a lot of posturing.

I don’t think that anything will come of this. Maybe Zuckerberg will spend some money. He’s got a lot of money to spend. But it’s all posturing. It’s all fighting. And I think the genie is out of the bottle now with Threads. And, again, you know, 100 million posts in 36 hours is pretty stunning. I mean, that’s nuts.

HUGHES: Right? And 50 million already on it, kind of testing it out. So I guess we’re wondering, come 2024, the presidential election, how big of a player Threads might be in the race for the White House?

HALL: It’s a great question and I wonder how much more, I mean, it feels like 2016 and 2020 were our social media elections, and I almost feel like we’re post-social media in terms of how much influence because we’ve sort of been there, done that. And I think we’re all collectively thinking more critically about this sort of stuff. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking. Maybe I just want us to get past the fact that social media can have such a big impact and influence. We’ll see.

It seems as though Threads is willing to be kind of a kinder, gentler, less partisan perspective, but it’s honestly, at this point, it’s all conjecture. Who knows? It will be interesting to follow as a side battle amongst all the other battles that are going on in the run to 2024.

HUGHES: Well, in the meantime, NewsNation watch party your house for the billionaire brawl? MMI, MMA?

HALL: Yeah, it’ll be, I’ll get a keg of beer, we’ll have a lot of fun.

HUGHES: I’ll bring some apps. Okay, thanks, Colby. Have a good weekend.

Watch the clip above via NewsNation.

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