While Musk and Zuck escalated their playground squabbles, the adults at Apple, Google, and Microsoft met Modi at the White House
- Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg should probably be feeling a little embarrassed now.
- This week, the tech billionaires discussed cage fighting as a way to settle their disputes.
The CEOs of Apple, Google, and Microsoft attended a White House dinner with India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, on Thursday as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg escalated their beef with each other.
Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Satya Nadella appeared as Silicon Valley's adults in the room when they visited Washington for President Joe Biden's state dinner during a crucial diplomatic visit to the US by Modi this week, Bloomberg reported.
The dinner's guest list also included a wide range of high-profile figures and celebrities, including Ralph Lauren, James Murdoch, and Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, per a list of attendees published by the White House.
Modi's visit to the US this week has been a crucial one for Biden, as the White House looks to build closer ties with India. The meeting was held amid growing hostilities with China over its increased aggression towards Taiwan and its economic decoupling with the US.
Though Musk and Zuckerberg weren't on the guest list, their absence from the dinner this week comes at an embarrassing moment for the tech billionaires.
The Twitter owner and world's richest man chose to escalate his rivalry with the Meta boss this week by challenging him to a cage fight on Tuesday. Zuckerberg responded to the challenge by asking Musk to "send me location" on an Instagram post.
On Thursday, the same day the White House dinner took place, Musk tweeted "let's go full MMA," suggesting that his fight with Zuckerberg should involve the style of combat seen in UFC bouts.
Musk and Zuckerberg have beefed with each other for some time, but recently become more antagonistic amid reports that Zuckerberg plans to launch a rival service to Twitter.
Musk and Meta did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside of normal working hours.