Inside T-Pain and Mark Zuckerberg’s bizarre friendship no one saw coming

No, it’s not a joke

3 weeks ago

Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain is a crossover we certainly didn’t have on our 2024 bingo card.

The pair appear to be recording a song together as the Facebook founder shared a photo of himself and the singer in a studio. Yes, really.

In the image, they both have headphones on and are standing in front of a big set of DJ decks.

“It’s happening guys,” Zuckerberg wrote, and T-Pain shared the picture on his Instagram Story too.

If you’re just as confused as us, here’s everything we know about their bizarre friendship.

Mark Zuckerburg in the studio with T-Pain 😂🤣 pic.twitter.com/U30BlDEANi

— ☔ (@Whotfismick) November 12, 2024

Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain’s friendship began in 2021

The unlikely friendship dates back to 2021 when Zuckerberg featured on a livestream with the songwriter.

It came after T-Pain told fans he had only just discovered the “Requests” section on Instagram DMs and found loads of unread messages from the likes of Diplo, Fergie and Jamie Foxx.

So, the singer invited the Instagram owner onto a live call to speak about changes he wanted made to the feature.

“I heard you were having some trouble with your DMs and I think I can help with that,” Zuckerberg said.

T-Pain explained his issue with the DMs and asked the billionaire to start notifying users about all messages so they don’t make the same mistake.

However, Zuckerberg explained that the feature was there as a safety measure.

“The reason why we have the ‘request feature’ is basically to prevent bullying and spam and other unwanted interactions. To be able to filter that out,” he said.

“I just think, on principle, anytime Rihanna sends you a message, it should go into your main inbox,” T-Pain jokingly argued.

T-Pain then gifted the Facebook founder a gold chain

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The next time we saw the two interact was in July 2024 when T-Pain gifted the Facebook mogul one of his iconic gold chains as part of a collaboration with Meta’s new AI model.

Zuckerberg shared a video of himself opening the blingy jewellery on Instagram.

“That’s awesome. Check this out,” he said while putting on the chain. “The other one wasn’t quite big enough.”

He was also wearing a smaller gold chain that T-Pain had previously gifted to him, although it’s not clear when.

“Thanks, T-Pain for the epic new chain. Perfect opportunity to show how the new Segment Anything AI research model we’re releasing today can track different objects in the same video,” he wrote in the caption.