The nation’s tech elite, not content with unfathomable wealth and rising political influence in Washington, have recently developed a new obsession — fighting. Across the United States, men like Batey are learning to punch, kick, knee, elbow and, in some cases, hammer an opponent over the head with their fists. The figurehead of the movement is Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire chief executive of Meta, who has charted his impressive physical transformation from skinny computer nerd to martial arts fighter on Instagram, one of the apps he owns. A recent post showed Zuckerberg, dressed in gym shorts and an American flag T-shirt, grappling his opponent to the ground.

The tech industry’s newfound devotion to martial arts is one facet of a broader cultural shift that has upended US politics. Many of these tech founders turned fighters are chasing a testosterone-heavy ideal of masculinity that is ascendant on social media and embraced by President Trump. An enthusiastic practitioner of Brazilian jujitsu, Zuckerberg, 40, lamented this year that corporate culture was getting “neutered” and was devoid of “masculine energy.” In 2023,  Zuckerberg’s fellow billionaire Elon Musk, a longtime corporate rival, challenged him to a televised cage match. The fight never took place, though Musk suggested at one point that he was willing to do battle in the Roman Colosseum.

Ancient Rome is, in some ways, a useful reference point for this era of ultrarich braggadocio. The wealthiest Romans were fascinated with violent combat. The emperor Commodus even joined in the gladiatorial contests, claiming he had fought as many as 1,000 times.

These days, the rise of mixed martial arts is part of a cultural revanchism that has thrived in the so-called manosphere, where hypermasculine online commentators complain that women have become too powerful in the workplace. In this corner of the internet, men are seeking to reclaim a kind of aggressive masculinity that came under scrutiny during the #MeToo era.