At first glance, this statement seems unlikely: besides Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, the Executive Director of many companies and the key advisor to President Trump, he says he is also a world player of video games.
It is a claim that Mr Musk has repeated over the years. He has account On X, his social media platform, devoted to publishing the most important things from his game. Streamed with some of the best competitive video game players in the world on platforms like Twitch. He even engraved his name on the world charts of some games.
Last week, however, a community of players, which he had long tried to impress, turned against him. It started with the live broadcast of Mr. Musk, who played Path of Exile 2, a popular RPG action -known for its difficulty. Despite his account, he showed that he had won one of the highest levels of play, his game looked like amateur.
Internet detective created videos on YouTube and took the Reddit fibers To analyze his game and reveal the mistakes that a newcomer would commit. Other players pointed out that Mr. Musk’s Path of Exile’s account was active at a time when he couldn’t play, as on Monday morning when Mr. Trump was inauguration. Mr. Musk’s account status indicated that he was logged into the game and inside the “map”, which meant that it was possible – though not certain – that someone in the account plays the game, while Mr. Musk was sitting behind Mr. Trump.
“How are you there?” one streamer inquired While watching the divided screen of the game and Mr. Musk in the rotunda chapter, when Mr. Trump folded an oath. “How are you in Sulfuric Caverns now, Elone?”
Thousands of players turned to X to accuse Mr. Musk of “strengthening” his account – paying for upgrades on third -party websites or hiring people to play his accounts for him. It was a game equivalent of stolen hearttiness.
It is rare that a billionaire touches something, whether he firing missiles or killing a digital Goat menIt leads to anything, but not to controversy. But for Mr. Musk, a “hardcore player” is a key part of the identity he tried to project: a polymatic stupid stupid, an equal automobile tycoon, a cosmic pioneer and an entrepreneur in serial technology.
Although he became one of the most powerful people in Trump’s administration, he went far to show that he was appreciating the culture of video games. And among the very online and very male fans of Mr. Musk, the great game skills are something that needs to be admired.
“He wants people to really look at him,” said Breslau, a long -time analyst and video game consultant. “He must be good in video games to be cool to all fans, all his technical events, all people who are in his technology, gaming and AI world.”
Mr. Musk has tried for years to make it visible in the game world. According to Walter Isaacson’s CV billionaire, Mr. Musk asking A role in Cyberpunk 2077, a very publicized, futuristic video game franchise that made their debut in 2020.
Streamed while playing Diablo 4, the back of the Monster killing series torn sales records When it worked out. And he fell in love with the groundbreaking play of Elden Ring and called her the “most beautiful art” he had ever seen. In the post for x.
But hardcore players were skeptical. In 2022 Mr. Musk lifted the eyebrows in the game community when he published a photo of a photo The “assembly” of his characters Elden Ring, which are different types of equipment that players can use to customize their characters. Fans of the game called it “Trash build”, composed of a series of nonsensical selections of equipment made by someone who seemed to have no idea how to play the game.
Mr. Musk discussed his playing in a November interview with Joe Rogan, a celebrity of Podcaster. Mr Musk quoted an unofficial ranking that he placed as one of them 20 best players of Diabla 4 in the world.
Players asked how possible. The amount of time to gain some items and abilities that Mr. Musk’s gaming character reached – according to some estimates, up to 10 hours of playing a day – did not seem in accordance with his plan of travel and events.
Mr. Musk returned fire to the opponents in posts for X – some later deleted – and attacked some critics for their own game skills.
But a week ago he admitted Nicholas Hayes, AS YouTube the personality that he actually strengthened his accounts.
In the news that Mr. Hayes shared in the video on YouTube, he asked a billionaire if he had increased, and Mr. Musk replied 100% Emoji.
“It’s impossible to beat players in Asia if you don’t,” Musk said in the news. Later he published the video on his own channel X. He did not respond to requests for comment.
In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Hayes said the revelation was not surprised. In the past, Diablo played with Mr. Musk and remembered the moments when the billionaire indicated that he had not earned his character’s equipment alone, or that another player gave it to him as a gift.
“I think it’s Elon Musk,” Mr. Hayes said. “If you play with him, you will probably give him a lot of things.”
Yet Mr. Musk defended his game skills and told Mr. Hayes that strengthening is a matter of course among the elite players in Diabl. And two of the mothers of his children stood up to his defense.
“For my personal pride, I would like to say that my children’s father was the first American druid in Diablo to cleanse the slaughterhouse from Zir and ended this season as the best in the US,” wrote Mrs. Boucher on X with reference to one of the most difficult game maps of dungeons . “I watched these things with my own eyes.”
Shivon Zilis, who worked with Mr. Musk in several of his companies and is known to be the mother of three of his children, published last week a video of Mr. Musk playing Diablo. In the answers she told the memory of how he played 17 hours on Christmas Eve in 2023.
“He took breaks for family meals and Christmas gifts, but he was too excited about sleep, so he took the time with children and 17 hours of work,” she wrote with a reference to the challenge in Diablo. “It was a pleasure to see how she was talking about it!”
Boosting violates Diablo IV and Path of Exile 2. But the third -party upgrade market is robust and players can choose from a series of websites to upgrade their accounts, most of which charge thousands of dollars.
Blizzard spokesman, publisher Diablo, refused to comment. Grinding Gear Games, publisher of Path of Exile, did not respond to the request for comment.
Some players of Path of Exile, who knew Mr. Musk as a passionate player for decades, were disappointed when they found out that he had paid for their account, including Dennis Fong, one of the first professional e-sports players.
In an interview, Mr. Fong said about playing Quake video games at the same servers of Stanford University as Mr. Musk at the age of 90. (Mr. Musk was not a student.) “He was decent,” said Mr. Fong on Mr. Muska, who used the nickname Zip2, which is the name of the company he recently founded. “He’s not one of the best in the world.”
When Mr. Musk boasted his play Diablo on X and Mr. Rogan’s podcast last year, Mr. Fong said he wanted to believe that this was true, because Diablo is generally considered an easy game without a great competitive scene. But while watching the play of Path of Exile, Mr. Fung was “obvious that he had no idea what was happening”.
Mr. Breslau said Mr. Musk reminded him of a teenager. “In this way,” Mr. Breslau added, “he is a real player.”
