A celebrity walks into the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for UFC 300 wearing a baggy white top, a gold chain and flanked by UFC chief Dana White and actor Jared Leto.
We’re not describing a rapper, NFL player or film star – this was Mark Zuckerberg last week.
At 39 years old, the billionaire Facebook founder is having a mid-life makeover.
Known for his gaunt, pale, sandal-wearing exterior, Zuckerberg is now reinventing himself with fur coats, diamond chains and a ripped body.
Zuckerberg peaked on Thursday when he posted a video showing off Meta’s AI technology, revealing a scruffy, bearded look.
The public had an overwhelming reaction to Zuckerberg’s AI-generated look, with one person saying: ‘[He] went from Mr. steal your data to Mr. steal your girl.’
Mark Zuckerberg released a video promoting Meta’s AI technology and received positive responses to his fake facial hair and tanned skin pictured: AI-generated image of Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg has revamped his attire, donning gold chains and fur coats as he strays away from his standard T-shirt
Mark Zuckerberg (middle) trained with UFC champions Israel Adesanya (left) & Alex Volkanovski (right)
Mark Zuckerberg went from a scrawny, pale student at Harvard University (pictured) to a gold chain wearing, body-building UFC fighter
In the late 2010s, Zuckerberg was public enemy number one – who remembers the grilling in Congress over data scandals and selling data and personal information of up to 87 million users to companies.
He was pale, sick-looking and often times awkward, donning a simple T-shirt and jeans and most of his social media photos were just of him and his family.
Now he’s cozying up to fighters, women are finding him attractive, he’s palling around with right-wing people like White and other UFC fighters, despite being a democratic mega donor.
At the same time, Facebook is suffering for its role in January’s congressional hearing on child safety and allegations that the social media platform is negatively impacting children’s mental health.
Yet, rather than focusing on Meta‘s first-quarter earnings report and bringing Facebook back to its former glory or the new Meta AI app, Zuckerberg is being recognized for a fake photo posted online.
Facebook recently hit its 20-year anniversary, which has seen its ups and down – and many scandals.
Heather Munoz recently visited ‘Zuck’s’ Instagram page to see the progress of the social media site, but she was shocked to find the opposite.
‘I came on here to see what Mark is doing in the future of social media and all I see are a bunch of posts about his favorite pastimes,’ Munoz shared on the site.
‘Shouldn’t Mark be thinking like a CEO at least some of the time?’
Another user commented on one of his photos saying: ‘Love that Mark has time for this. Meanwhile my 20-year-old Facebook profile and business page has been hacked and Meta has been zero percent helpful in getting it back under my control.’
But it seems Zuckerberg’s appearance seems to matter more than the suspicious light cast on his platforms.
From the awkward college student inventing Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard University to the body-building UFC fighter he’s become today, Zuckerberg’s transformation has been nothing short of astounding.
JV Quantum shared on X: ‘From awkward college kid to hoodie-wearing tech mogul to sunscreen-slathered surfer dude, Mark Zuckerberg’s metamorphosis is the epitome of ‘glow up.’
Zuckerberg took to Instagram to share an update on Meta’s AI technology last week which showed off an edited image of himself with a scruffy beard and tanned skin that many people believed was real.
Their shock at the change was palpable, with people focusing on the chain around his neck and his facial hair, while others simply called him a ‘snack.’
Zuckerberg has also grown his hair out recently and is wearing jewelry for the first time. He and his wife Pricilla were mocked for showing up to a UFC fight in ‘mob-style’
Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook from his dorm room at Harvard University in 2004 (pictured)
Mark Zuckerberg went back to college and graduated in 2017 after dropping out from Harvard when Facebook took off in 2004
Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan were dressed to impress for last month’s Anant Ambani’s $1 million watch during at lavish pre-wedding party branded ‘enchanting’ by fellow attendee Ivanka Trump
The AI-generated picture is a stark contrast from the clean-shaven Meta CEO who started donning fur coats and designer sweaters that left many people asking if he’d acquired a stylist.
Dressing down ‘is so played out,’ Andrew Weitz, a Los Angeles-based executive-style consultant told the Wall Street Journal.
Executives are ‘tailored more properly, or what they’re wearing is just different,’ he said, adding: ‘They don’t want to look like everybody else.’
Zuckerberg impressed the masses when he showed off a shirtless photo last year, alongside UFC champions Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski before heading into the ring for training.
In the post, Adesanya wrote: ‘No fugazi with Mark. This is Serious Business‼️’
Silicon Valley has been notorious for tech moguls wearing the more simplistic attire to instead focus on their product, dating back to Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Zuckerberg went so far as to speak on the topic in a 2014 Facebook forum, saying he wore a T-shirt everyday because ‘I really want to clear my life so that I have to make as few decisions as possible, other than how to best serve this community.’
However, those simply shirts still cost the CEO around $300 each.
The look was supposed to be synonymous with ‘a carefully constructed image and narrative used to reinforce its myths,’ Venky Ganesan, a partner at the venture capital firm Menlo Ventures told the New York Times.
There has been the myth that wearing a simple outfit means the those working in the tech world are focused on providing an honest, well thought out, and safe product, but Ganesan told the outlet: ‘The playbook is changing.’
In January, the Meta CEO stood before Congress to address allegations that the social media platform had widely impacted youth’s mental health, resulting in depression and in some cases their deaths.
During the hearing, Zuckerberg apologized to the parents and families who said their children had died because of issues related to social media.
‘I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,’ Zuckerberg said at the hearing.
‘No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered, and this is why we invested so much and are going to continue doing industry-leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things that your families had to suffer.’
The Child Safety hearing wasn’t the first time Facebook has come under fire after it gained international attention for selling users data between 2011 and 2015 to more than 60 companies including Nike, AOL, UPS, and the Hinge dating app.
The question remains if Zuckerberg can rebrand himself enough to rebrand his platform as the positive social media apps it was marketed as back in his small dorm room at Harvard.
