Bluesky CEO Jay Graber recently took the stage at SXSW, where she subtly mocked Mark Zuckerberg without directly mentioning Meta. Her black T-shirt, which featured black text across the chest and sleeves, resembled a similar shirt worn by the billionaire founder at an event last year. Graber’s shirt displayed the Latin phrase Mundus sine Caesaribus, meaning “a world without Caesars.”

The audience on Bluesky was enthusiastic about Graber’s T-shirt, prompting the platform to sell replicas to support its developer ecosystem.

The $40 shirt, available in sizes S – XL, was sold out in approximately 30 minutes.

Zuckerberg has drawn comparisons between himself and the Roman leader Julius Caesar, with his own shirt featuring the phrase Aut Zuck aut nihil, or “Zuck or nothing,” a nod to the Latin phrase Aut Caesar aut nihil. This comparison has raised eyebrows, given the violent history of the Roman dictator.

In contrast to Meta’s vast empire, Bluesky’s decentralized and open-source infrastructure envisions a social media landscape where individual executives do not wield absolute power.

This approach allows any developer to contribute to the platform’s growth, making Graber’s shirt more than just a jab at a larger competitor – it represents the values that Bluesky strives to uphold.

At SXSW, Graber emphasized the benefits of Bluesky’s open architecture, saying, “If a billionaire were to acquire Bluesky or take it over, or if I were to make changes that users strongly disagreed with, they could fork off and create an alternative application. There are already applications within the network that offer different ways to interact with it, and users can build new ones as well. This openness ensures that there will always be the option to switch to a new alternative.”