White Details Musk-Zuckerberg Fight Talks

The Musk vs. Zuckerberg fight was real — and it nearly happened inside the Colosseum.

Dana White has revealed for the first time how close the bout between the two billionaires came to materialising, disclosing that he spent two weeks conducting negotiations and held conference calls with the Italian government before the project eventually collapsed. The sticking point was not willingness. It was money, and not in the way most people assumed.

The Colosseum demanded $150 million to host the event — not a standard venue fee, but a contribution toward restoring historic landmarks across Italy. Both Musk and Zuckerberg were prepared to pay it.

"That was real. I was literally in my backyard for two weeks negotiating that fight. Those two were gonna put up the money for the Colosseum. I was literally doing conference calls with the government in Italy to do this thing in the Colosseum in Rome. For the right number, the Colosseum was going to let us do that fight there. Eventually, it started to fall apart, but while it lasted it was fun,” White

The $150 million figure puts the ambition of the project in perspective. The UFC spent a reported $60 million staging Freedom 250 on the White House lawn, an event that drew 17 million viewers and broke every streaming record the sport had previously set. The Musk-Zuckerberg fight was being built toward a price tag more than double that — at a venue that has stood for two thousand years and has never hosted anything remotely like it.

The fight generated enormous public interest when it surfaced in 2023, with both men trading challenges on social media before the conversation faded without a formal announcement. The right price was $150 million. Even that was not the reason it fell apart.