Elon Musk challenged a 160-kilogram sumo wrestler and suffered eight years of pain
The reason for the back pain that may prevent a fight between American billionaire Elon Musk and Meta Corporation founder Mark Zuckerberg turned out to be an injury suffered nine years ago. Musk mentioned the circumstances in which it happened in one of his posts on the social network X (Twitter).
According to Musk, during a fight with a Sumo wrestler, he damaged one of the intervertebral discs in the cervical spine. After that, he suffered from severe back pain for eight years. In 2022, the billionaire reported that the pain was managed thanks to spondylodesis – an operation in which the damaged vertebrae are fused and immobilized.
Ashley Vance’s 2015 biographical book “Elon Musk: How the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is building our future” describes the fight in more detail. The billionaire met “one of the best sumo wrestlers in the world” while celebrating his birthday. Although the theme of the party was steampunk, the birthday boy himself dressed up as a samurai. According to the surviving photo, he decided to challenge Yokozuna.
“Sumoist weighed 160 kilograms, and these kilograms were not from fat at all. I managed to get him off the ground on pure adrenaline. He let me win the first round, and then he crushed me. And my back, I think, has been messed up ever since.” – Elon Musk said.
