Elon Musk's dad has slammed his son's much-hyped cage fight with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg as a "silly", "banal" and "high school"-style publicity stunt.
Errol Musk spoke out as the two tech billionaires were mocked online by critics for sharing the world's most pathetic "trash talk" over the fight, which has been dragging on for months without a date set.
He told The US Sun about how he believed the clash was first proposed by Elon, who has rebranded Twitter X after buying it last year for US$44 billion (S$60 billion): "It's to get publicity for X. Elon's not faking it, just drawing attention to X.
"A fight would be silly. It's so high school and banal. Whatever Elon is doing here is far removed from his immediate tasks.
"People probably ask him about this fight thing. What must he say? 'No?'
"That would look pretty poor. What can he say?"
Errol's comments also came amid increasingly bizarre behaviour from Elon, 52, who has claimed he had arrived uninvited outside his billionaire rival Mark's home on Monday (Aug 14) for a practice bout in his backyard.
It remains unclear if Mark, 39, opened the door to the Tesla boss, even though he has repeatedly accepted Elon's Octagon face-off challenge.
Dad-of-10 Elon leaked his private messages with Mark over the weekend after sending a screenshot of their latest exchange to biographer Walter Isaacson - in which he urged his tech rival to accept a warm-up bout.
But father-of-three Mark has told the X boss to get serious over the fight or move on.
Elon said on X about apparently calling at Mark's house: "If we get lucky and Zuck my [tongue emoji] actually answers the door, the fight is on!"
Earlier this month, Elon revealed he was planning to fight Mark in Rome.
Elon said on X: "The fight will be managed by my and Zuck's foundations (not UFC).
"Livestream will be on this platform and Meta. Everything in the camera frame will be ancient Rome, so nothing modern at all.
"I spoke to the PM of Italy and the Minister of Culture. They have agreed on an epic location.
"Everything done will pay respect to the past and present of Italy. And all proceeds go to veterans. And paediatric hospitals in Italy."
UFC boss Dana White, 54, recently claimed that a proposed fight between the business rivals could generate as much as US$1 billion.
ALSO READ: Italy stands ready to host as Musk talks up Zuckerberg rumble