Once bitter rivals, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk found common ground in early 2025 when the Meta CEO reached out to offer support for Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In a February text message, Zuckerberg wrote: "Looks like DOGE is making progress. I've got our teams on alert to take down content doxxing or threatening the people on your team. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help."

The friendly exchange came shortly after both tech leaders aligned with President Trump's administration. Musk reciprocated with enthusiasm, then proposed a joint venture to acquire OpenAI. "Are you open to the idea of bidding on the OpenAI IP with me and some others?" he asked. Zuckerberg suggested discussing it live, though no formal collaboration materialized.

These texts emerged as part of Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, with his lawyers attempting to exclude the Zuckerberg conversations as "tangential and prejudicial." The Meta CEO's offer to help DOGE coincided with Meta's controversial pivot away from content moderation, positioning both CEOs as allies in reducing oversight of government initiatives.