Elon Musk holds executive positions at several major corporations and is also active in politics, but he still finds time to play video games. His accounts rank high on the leaderboards for Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2, but casual gamers doubt that Musk has actually played them for hundreds of hours, as he is confused about the basic game mechanics.
Elon Musk holds executive positions at several major corporations and is also active in politics, but he still finds time to play video games. His accounts rank high on the leaderboards for Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2, but casual gamers doubt that Musk has actually played them for hundreds of hours, as he is confused about the basic game mechanics.
As PC Gamer reports, Musk’s gaming achievements were called into question this week as PoE 2 streamers and Subreddit users analyzed his recent stream.
On January 7, Musk streamed an hour and a half of Path of Exile 2 gameplay as his level 95 character. In PoE 2, surviving the higher levels of the hardcore league, regardless of where you are on the ladder, is an amazing feat. As you progress, the game adds layers of enemy modifiers, damage resistance reduction, and hazard tile modifiers, and if a player dies once in the hardcore league, it means their character is dead.
Getting a hardcore character in the 80s is impressive; getting a character in the 90s to take a high spot on the hardcore ladder is a feat of masterful gameplay and buildcraft. However, Elon Musk did not demonstrate such mastery on his stream.
The strange signs start to appear as early as the 18th minute of the stream, when Musk enters his character’s hideout to open a tab called «Elon’s Map». Given that the other tabs aren’t labeled «Elon’s Currency» or «Elon’s Catalysts,» this tab stands out. Some conspiracy theorists might see this as an indication that perhaps someone else was curating the selection of cornerstones that generate the map to make gameplay easier—like if you want to be able to show off your high-level character without the real risk of getting killed.
Then, Musk started acting even more strangely. His speed slowed, and his movements sometimes seemed random. At one point, he left valuable currency items like Chaos Orbs and Exalted Orbs uncollected on the ground, but picked up low-level keystones that were irrelevant to his character’s level. Musk also entered the map with a full inventory, then repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to collect the items.
According to players, this is very strange behavior, ranking 12th in the world in the ranking of hardcore PoE 2 players. In particular, Musk probably has no idea how the detailing works in Path of Exile 2. At the end of the stream, he looks at his current equipment. Looking at his weapon, he says that it is «only level 62» compared to his level 95 character. At the same time, he seems unaware that in PoE, the effectiveness of an item is determined not by its level, but by the item level — a separate indicator that determines what affixes that item can be thrown with.
Players on the PoE 2 subreddit expressed doubts that Musk actually plays on this account. «His gear is better than many regular streamers. This can’t be true. Account sharing or some kind of promotion», — said a user with the nickname InvestmentFew9366.
«The weirdest thing to me is that he feels like he needs to brag about being a professional gamer for some reason. The dude sent a car his company designed into space on a rocket another company designed, why the hell does he need to brag about being a gamer?», — Elbjornbjorn said.
Elon Musk’s ex-wife, singer Grimes, previously spoke about how the billionaire dealt with the stress that came with the acquisition of Twitter. According to her, Elon stayed up until 5:30 a.m. playing the soulslike Elden Ring.
