Turns out the titans of tech can be just as petty as the rest of us.
In a very public gesture on Tuesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey went out of his way to unfollow rival and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a way that other users wouldn’t miss.
As reported by Mashable, Dorsey initiated his plan by following the Twitter account @BigTechAlert which, according to the account’s own bio, “[follows] what the CEOs and other high executives from Big Tech companies do on Twitter[.]”
Shortly after, the account tweeted an alert to its followers that Dorsey had followed them.
But it wasn’t this alert that caught users’ attention. Not even a minute after following @BigTechAlert, Dorsey unfollowed Zuckerberg on Twitter, prompting the CEO-tracking account to alert its followers of the move.
? @jack is no longer following @finkd
— Big Tech Alert (@BigTechAlert) December 17, 2019
In response to Mashable’s inquiry into the move, a Twitter spokesperson responded only with a goat emoji.
This is likely in reference to an unnerving story divulged by Dorsey in January. The Twitter CEO claimed that in a strange dinner at Zuckerberg’s house, the Facebook owner served Dorsey goat meat from an animal he had slaughtered himself.
Dorsey claims that Zuckerberg keeps a small allotment of goats on his Palo Alto which he raises himself.
In a more recent display of animosity, Dorsey has also criticized Zukerberg publicly for the mogul’s policy on political advertising.
Facebook has controversially declined to fact check political advertisements on its platform, claiming that the move would violate its views on free speech.
The decision comes at a time when Facebook has come under fire for not doing enough to stem political misinformation campaigns launched by foreign actors.
As a response to Facebook’s decision, Twitter decided to take an entirely different approach to its policy on political advertisements by banning them altogether.
While the recent spat seems to be less philosophical and potentially a lot more petty, it represents a growing and increasingly nasty rift between two of the biggest names in social media and technology on the whole.
