The interaction reportedly happened when the co-founder of WhatsApp, Brian Acton, tweeted, on 20 March: 'It is time #deletefacebook'.

Responding to the tweet, the 46-year-old Musk asked: 'What's Facebook?'

A random stranger then issued the challenge, asking Musk to delete SpaceX's Facebook page - which, at that time, had around 2.6 million 'Likes' - "if you're the man".

And like a true boss, Musk responded that he "didn't realise there was one" and agreed to delete the page.

True enough, the SpaceX Facebook page was taken down less than thirty minutes later.

Not only that, Musk also deleted the Facebook page of his other high-profile company, electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla.

In a subsequent tweet, Musk said that he doesn't care about the Facebook pages ("Looks lame anyway," he said in another tweet) and he doesn't reckon his companies will lose millions over his actions:

Instagram’s probably ok imo, so long as it stays fairly independent. I don’t use FB & never have, so don’t think I’m some kind of martyr or my companies are taking a huge blow. Also, we don’t advertise or pay for endorsements, so … don’t care.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018

The Mark Zuckerberg connection

Both Musk and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg were not exactly the best of friends.

Back in 2016, Zuckerberg said he was "deeply disappointed" at Musk and SpaceX after the company's Falcon 9 rocket carrying Facebook's Amos-6 satellite exploded on the launch pad.

Musk took the blame for the mishap:

Yeah, my fault for being an idiot. We did give them a free launch to make up for it and I think they had some insurance.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018

The #deletefacebook movement started on social media last week after it was revealed that the company has, without permission or user's knowledege, used vast amounts user data to build profiles of American voters to help Donald Trump's presidential campaign.