Musk and Zuck are probably not getting in the cage so I used data to match them up.

It's not every day that you see two of tech's biggest magnates going at each other in public, but that’s exactly what Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been doing for the last month or so. There's even been talk about them settling their differences in a UFC cage match, and people have been losing their minds on the possibility.

To be honest, I don’t see them following through.

Fight training takes way too much time to fit alongside running multibillion dollar companies, plus, Zuck finishes marathons and knows jiu-jitsu, so it would probably be over in the first 90 seconds.

So we’ll have to settle the beef differently. I had a spare weekend, so I decided to use the White Mirror tools to analyze each one’s fans, social media platforms, Google searches, and memes. The goal is to use data to explore their reach and influence.

Maybe not as thrilling as watching them try to break each other’s teeth but still interesting nevertheless.

This came out way longer than I expected so I decided to split it into parts to make it less tiring. Part 1 : Fans, is all about Elon’s social media followers vs Zuck’s social media followers.

I used White Mirror tools to find each audience’s social influences, age, gender, skills, jobs, and most popular media.

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High-Level Summary of findings

Both Musk's and Zuckerberg's followers are tech-entrepreneurship enthusiasts, prefer mainstream media, and work in tech industries.

Musk's audience is more diverse and politically engaged, skews younger, and has interests beyond tech.

Zuckerberg's audience is more business-tech focused, exhibits stronger entrepreneurial spirit, and is slightly more gender-balanced.

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Social Influences

What you see here is the five most popular accounts within each audience. The percentage listed next to each profile tells you how much of that audience also follows this profile. For example, Jeff Bezos is the most popular influencer for Zack’s audience as 25.7% of people who follow Mark Zuckerberg also follow Jeff Bezos. To keep findings meaningful and interesting, I've excluded very big accounts (i.e. official Twitter account, Biden, Trump etc)

Insights:

• Both audiences follow Jeff Bezos, indicating shared tech interest.

• Elon's audience shows diverse interests, including politics, reflecting his eclectic public persona.

• Mark's audience focuses on tech industry leaders, mirroring his tech entrepreneur role.

• Zuck's audience shows intense focus, with all top 5 influencers being followed by a significant percent of his audience, and all of them being leaders in the tech space.

Basic Demographics

Gender and age data. You can hover over the age distributions bars to see the exact percentages.

Age distribution of people who follow Elon Musk on social media

Age distribution of people who follow Mark Zuckerberg on social media

Gender distribution of people who follow Elon Musk on social media

Gender distribution of people who follow Mark Zuckerberg on social media

Insights:

• Musk's audience skews younger, with over half under 35.

• Both audiences are predominately male, with Zuck's slightly more balanced.

Profession and skills

Data for each audience's most common job roles, industries, and skills. Showing the first 10 of each category.

Job Roles

Job Roles of people who follow Elon Musk on social media

Job Roles of people who follow Mark Zuckerberg on social media

Insights:

• Both audiences are primarily in "Engineering" and "Operations".

• Elon's audience leans towards "Sales" and "Design"; Mark's towards "Marketing" and "Media".

Employer Industries

Employer Industries of people who follow Elon Musk on social media

Employer Industries of people who follow Mark Zuckerberg on social media

Insights:

• Both audiences predominantly come from tech-related industries.

• Elon's audience has more representation in "Financial Services" and "Real Estate".

• Mark's audience is more focused on "Marketing", "Public Relations", and "Online Media".

Mentioned Skills

Mentioned skills of people who follow Elon Musk on social media

Mentioned skills of people who follow Mark Zuckerberg on social media

Insights:

• Both audiences value "Management", "Leadership", and "Social Media".

• Elon's audience shows more traditional corporate skills; Mark's emphasizes entrepreneurial and digital marketing skills.

Media

Data on each audience’s favorite News Outlets, YouTube Channels, and Podcasts. Showing the first 5 for each category.

News Outlets

Insights:

• Both audiences follow mainstream news outlets, indicating shared interests.

• Zuckerberg's audience shows stronger engagement with these shared news sources.

• Zuckerberg's audience uniquely follows TechCrunch, highlighting a strong tech news interest.

• Musk's audience is more diverse, including 'BBC Breaking News' in their top 5.

These interests align with Musk's varied ventures and Zuckerberg's tech-focused role.

YouTube

Insights:

• Elon's YouTube audience is so diverse, that any specific deductions would likely be inaccurate.

• Zuck's YouTube audience is heavily business-oriented, focusing on venture capital and tech industry content.

Podcasts

Insights:

• Both audiences listen to the "Naval" podcast, indicating shared interest in entrepreneurship.

• Elon's audience shows diverse podcast interests, including psychology, politics, and public health while Mark's audience only engages with business and entrepreneurship podcasts

• Mark's audience shows intense focus, with all top 5 podcasts followed by a significant percent, all aligned with business and entrepreneurship.

Thoughts

Looking back to all of my findings, there were some interesting insights. First, these audiences are much less alike than I thought. We’re talking about the two biggest tech leaders of our time so I expected them to be followed by pretty much the same people.

Turns out I was wrong.

Elon Musk is much more of pop cultural figure than he’s a business figure. His distinctive personality, multi-industry involvement and regular shitposting, makes him appeal to a broader (as indicated by the low percentages and diversity of interests) and younger audience.

On the other hand, Mark seems to be a superstar for the hardcore tech bros. His follower’s interests, influences, and content consumption had surprising high percentages overall and everything was almost exclusively tech-business related. His audience is very homogenous, they all care about the same thing and that’s internet startups. Perhaps The Social Network had something to do with it.

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That’s everything for part 1, I hope you enjoyed it. Next time, I'll look into Twitter (sorry, I meant X.com) vs Instagram, and then I'm going to end it with Google Search Interest and meme comparisons.

It was refreshing to do research and dive into data for entertainment purposes, although it admittedly took a lot more time than I expected (especially since we went completely overboard with the design). A pretty fun experience overall, and I’m thinking of turning it into a monthly series if people like it.

By the way, if you want the White Mirror team to analyze your market the same way I did with Elon's and Zuck's followers, contact us at contact@whitemirror.io. We do Customer Analysis for clients that's ten times as deep and has 3 times more information than what you see here. See a small sample here.

Thanks for reading!