Elon Musk, King of Video Games? Well, maybe not.

At first glance, the statement seems unlikely: in addition to being the richest man in the world, executive director of multiple companies and key advisor to President Trump, Elon Musk says he is also a world -class video game player.

It is a statement that Musk has repeated over the years. He has a <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/cyb3rgam3r420/media” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>account In x, its social media platform, dedicated to publishing the highlights of your game. He has broadcast with some of the best competitive video game players in the world on platforms like Twitch. He has even recorded his name in the world classification tables of certain games.

But last week, the community of players which for a long time had tried to impress turned against him. It began with a live broadcast of Musk playing Path of Exile 2, a popular action role -playing game known for its difficulty. Although his account showed that he had obtained one of the highest levels of the game, his game looked like an fan.

Internet detectives He made YouTube videos and led to Reddit threads To analyze his game, exposing the mistakes that a rookie would make. Other players pointed out that Musk's Path of Exile account has been active at a time when he could not have played, as Monday morning, while he was in Trump's possession. The state of the Musk account indicated that he had logged into the game and inside a “map”, which meant that it was possible (although not sure) that someone in the account was playing while Musk was sitting behind Trump. .

“How are you there?” A serpentine <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/LSF_Forwarder/status/1881461372313038946″ title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>disputed While looking at a divided screen of the game and Mr. Musk in the Capitol's roundabout, while Mr. Trump took oath. “How are you in the sulphuric caverns at this time, Elon?”

Thousands of players resorted to x to accuse Musk of “promoting” his account, that is, paying for updates on third -party websites or hiring people to play their accounts for him. It was the equivalent in the game to the stolen value.

It is rare for something to touch the billionaire, either launching rockets or ending the digital. goatsIt results from anything but controversy. But for Musk, the “unconditional player” is a key part of the identity he has tried to project: a polymatic nerd that is equal automotive magnate, space pioneer and technological entrepreneur in series.

Although it has become one of the most powerful people of the Trump administration, it has done everything possible to show that it appreciates the culture of video games. And among the very masculine Fandom and Musk's online, his great game skills are something worth admiring.

“He wants people to really admire him,” said Rod Breslau, an analyst and video game consultant for a long time. “It needs to be good in video games to be attractive to all fans, all their technological events, all people who are in their technological world, players and artificial intelligence.”

Musk has pressed for a high profile in the world of games for years. According to the biography of the billionaire written by Walter Isaacson, Musk demanded A role in Cyberpunk 2077, the very publicized futuristic video game franchise that debuted in 2020 (his ex -girlfriend Claire Boucher, who interprets music as Grimes and with whom he has three children, played a character in the game).

He has transmitted himself playing Devil 4, the disturbing monster hunting series that broke sales records when he launched. And he has surrounded the successful play of role Elden Ring, describing him as “the most beautiful art” he has ever seen. <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1528576711209766914″ title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>In a publication for x.

But unconditional players have been skeptical. In 2022, Musk surprised the players community when <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1528955104463814656″ title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>He published a photo of the “construction” of his character of Elden Ring, which are the various types of teams that players can use to customize their characters. The game fans called him a “junk construction”, composed of a series of meaningless team elections taken by someone who seemed to have no idea how to play.

Musk talked about his games in a November interview with Joe Rogan, the famous Podcast. Musk cited an unofficial classification table that showed it classified as one of the The 20 best devil 4 players in the world..

The players wondered how that was possible. The amount of time necessary to obtain some of the elements and skills that the Musk game character had achieved (up to 10 hours of the game per day, according to some estimates) did not seem to coincide with his travel and events agenda.

Musk responded to detractors in publications about x (some of which he later eliminated) and attacked some of the critics for their own game skills.

But a week ago, he admitted to Nicholas Hayes, a YouTube games Personality, who had effectively promoted his accounts.

In messages you have shared in a YouTube video, he asked the billionaire if he had driven himself, and Musk responded with a 100%emoji.

“It is impossible to overcome players in Asia if you don't,” Musk said in messages. Later he published the video on his own channel x. He did not respond to requests for comments.

In an interview with The New York Times, Hayes said the revelation did not surprise him. He has played Diablo with Musk in the past and recalled moments when the billionaire hinted that he had not won his character's team, or that another player had given it to him.

“I mean, it's Elon Musk,” said Hayes. “If you play with him, you will probably give him a lot of things.”

Even so, Musk defended his aptitude for the game and said in the messages to Hayes that the impulse is common among the elite players of Diablo. And two of their children's mothers have come out in their defense.

“Just for my personal pride, I would like to say that my children's father was the first American Druid in Diablo to clean Zir's slaughterhouse and ended that season as the best in the US.”, Wrote Mrs. Boucher in x, referring to one of the difficult dungeons of the game. “I watched these things with my own eyes.”

Shivon Zilis, who has worked with Musk in several of his companies and is known for being the mother of three of his children, published a Musk video last week playing Diablo. In the answers, she told a memory of when he played for 17 hours the Christmas day of 2023.

“It took breaks for family meals and Christmas gifts, but I was too excited to sleep, and this is how he managed to spend time with the children and work 17 hours in Aoz that day,” he wrote, referring to a challenge in the devil. “It was a pleasure to see him have so much fun with that!”

The impulse violates the terms and conditions of Devil IV and Path of Exile 2. But the third -party updates market is solid and players can choose between several websites to update their accounts, most of which charge thousands of dollars.

A Blizzard spokesman, the devil editor, declined to comment. Grinder Gear Games, the Path of Exile editor, did not respond to a comment request.

Some Path of Exile players who knew Musk as an avid player for decades were disappointed to discover that he had paid to improve his account, including Dennis Fong, one of the first professional electronic sports players.

In an interview, Fong said he played the Quake video game on the same servers of Stanford University as Musk in the 1990s. (Mr. Musk was not a student.) “He was decent,” said Fong on Musk, who He used the Zip2 username, the name of the company that had recently founded. “He is not one of the best in the world.”

When Musk boasted of his devil game in x and in Rogan's podcast last year, Fong said he wanted to believe it was true, since devil is usually considered an easy game without much competitive scene. But seeing Path of Exile's gameplay, Fung said, it was “obvious that he had no idea what was happening.”

Breslau said Musk reminded a teenager. “In that sense,” Breslau added, “he is a real player.”