On Saturday, Elon Musk tried to show off his gaming skills by livestreaming the game Path of Exile 2 on X (formerly Twitter) while flying on his private jet. He said that the stream was meant to test his Starlink Wi-Fi in the air, but many believe it was also an attempt to revive his reputation as a gamer. The stream did not go well. Musk died several times throughout the game and was getting pestered and insulted by the chat. He then ended the stream after almost two hours of being live, seemingly due to a lost connection.
In the game, he was playing on the hardest setting, called hardcore mode. In this mode, the player is forced to restart the game whenever their character dies. Musk’s characters died multiple times, causing him to create new characters. Many commentators and gamers specifically noted that he was dying at the game’s tutorial boss, not a late-game boss. A lot of viewers also frequently thought that Musk didn’t know how to play well, which is confusing because he has a high rank in the game.
Throughout the livestream, viewers left many comments trying to annoy Musk. Some messages were about his personal life, like one viewer was pretending to be Ashley St. Clair, the reported mother of one of his children, asking him to pay child support. Another viewer asserted that Musk hasn’t moved on from his ex-girlfriend, Claire Boucher, professionally known as Grimes.
TikTok user @luzhelzin says, “The richest man in the world and supposedly a genius didn’t think of having a moderator for his chat?”
Musk stayed quiet most of the time, staring at the camera while listening to Grimes’ song “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth.” After the livestream ended, Musk deleted the video, but viewers had already saved and reposted it online.
This is not the first time Musk has been accused of faking his gaming skills. He once said he was one of the best Path of Exile players, but later admitted to paying other people to level up his account, which goes against the game’s rules.
His estranged daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, also shared a story that changed the public’s reception of Musk as a gamer. During an interview with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, she explained that when she was 12, Musk was a Bronze-ranked Overwatch player who asked her and her twin to play ranked matches with him so they could improve his rank. She said that it was “cringe” for him to pretend to be a pro gamer.
Amy Chan, an Eleanor Roosevelt High School senior, says, “I don’t know how close he is with his family, but he should keep working on [gaming] himself if he wants to become better.”
With the livestream failure, the cheating, and Wilson’s experience, many people now believe that Elon Musk is not good at video games. Even though he is extremely powerful financially, his attempts to be perceived as an expert gamer seem to be counterproductive.
