Anti-Hero

Mark Zuckerberg Bedazzles Face In Homage To Taylor Swift 

The social media magnate and self-proclaimed “girl dad” attended a Bay Area stop of the Eras Tour in full Swiftie regalia. 
Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg
Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg

A cage match with ostensible rival Elon Musk might have been the furthest thing from Mark Zuckerberg's mind Friday, if photos he posted to Instagram are any indication. In a switch from the billionaire's recent activity on the platform—that is, shots from the martial arts gym or shirtless photos with athletes—the Meta founder instead shared images from a Santa Clara, California stop on Taylor Swift's Eras Tour that Zuckerberg attended with his wife and daughters.

Sporting a single eye encircled by a rhinestone heart, Zuckerberg wrote “Life of a girl dad” and shared a photo of himself and wife Dr. Priscilla Chan from what appears to be a box high atop Levi's Stadium, where Swift played a show Friday to a crowd of about 58,000 fans. In two other photos posted to the @Zuck account, we see Zuckerberg's wrist, conspicuously adorned with Swift-themed friendship bracelets, as well as four kids with faces obscured as they wait for Swift to appear at the stage far below.

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But all is not play for the father of three (Maxima, born in 2015; August, born in 2017; and Aurelia, born earlier this year), who manages to balance his parenting responsibilities with his day job as chairman and CEO of Meta. According to an Instagram story seemingly posted on the way to the show, he was also forced to contend with as many as 13 different email messages as he headed to the concert from one of his multiple Bay Area homes.

Credit: Mark Zuckerberg/Instagram

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg's seeming nemesis, Elon Musk—himself the father of a whopping ten children—was facing a battle far less intimidating than a stadium packed with Taylor Swift fans. Instead, reports the San Francisco Standard, Musk has run afoul of San Francisco officials for seemingly placing an allegedly “unpermitted structure” atop the roof of the building that houses X, the social network that was until last week known as Twitter. As of Friday, a spokesperson for the city's Department of Building Inspection says that it “is opening a complaint and initiating an investigation” against Musk and his company, the AP reports

Perhaps mulling Musk's latest moves are what prompted that enigmatic smile from Zuck, or it could be a more wistful, Swift-appropriate sentiment behind those eyes. For, as Gizmodo reported Friday, Zuckerberg's long-promised fistfight with Musk isn't moving forward as he'd hoped.

The news came out at an internal Meta meeting Thursday, when an employee asked if the cage match between the two had been scheduled. “I don’t know. I don’t have any kind of official update on this,” Zuckerberg responded.  “I would love to do an MMA competition at some point. I wasn’t expecting this to be the one that I did. I’m not sure if it’s going to come together.”