Most recent attention on Elon Musk has concerned his attendance at the second inauguration of President Donald Trump (and a distinctive salute he gave at the event that was cause for cheer among neo-Nazis). But we meanwhile got confirmation that his claims to gamer greatness were only possible thanks to other people putting in hours of work for him.
If you’ve been too mired in the political moment to catch up with this side scandal, the short version is that gamers have spent months compiling evidence that Musk isn’t nearly as accomplished in the fantasy RPG titles Diablo IV and Path of Exile 2 as he wants people to believe. In podcast appearances with Joe Rogan and others, Musk has readily accepted praise for being a top-ranked player in these virtual worlds without indicating that he had help from anonymous gamers grinding to boost his character levels, which takes an extraordinary time commitment — even for those who don’t run several major companies while inserting themselves into a presidential administration. A Path of Exile livestream earlier this month proved most damaging to his credibility, with Musk operating an incredibly powerful character but showing little knowledge of the basics of gameplay.
With seemingly little choice at that point besides quietly coming clean, Musk went on to answer a series of DMs on X (formerly Twitter) from little-known YouTuber NicoWrex, who has fewer than 3,000 followers on the platform. NicoWrex got to the crux of the matter, asking if Musk had indeed “level boosted” (that is, outsourced the work of leveling up his characters to other players) “and/or purchased gear/resources for PoE2 and Diablo 4.” As shown in screenshots from NicoWrex’s YouTube video about their exchange, posted on Jan. 18, Musk replied with the “100” emoji, adding, “It’s impossible to beat players in Asia if you don’t.”
NicoWrex also asks Musk if it was his “intention to take full credit for leveling your [hardcore] characters” in Path of Exile. (In the notoriously difficult “hardcore” mode of the game, a character that dies even once is permanently deleted, and Musk’s account has had four characters make it to levels in the 90s, placing them high on the global leaderboard.) Musk denied trying to mislead anyone about doing all this himself: “No, never claimed that. The top accounts in Diablo or PoE require multiple people playing the account to win a leveling race,” he argued.
“But when I post a video of a game or am streaming, that is 100% me,” Musk also told NicoWrek, though that was never in dispute among the gaming community. What had so incensed fans of Path of Exile 2 in particular were the indications that Musk had apparently relied on “real money trading,” or RMT, a practice of buying valuable items with real currency outside of the game’s boundaries, and “piloting,” or allowing other people to play on your behalf — both potentially bannable offenses regardless of Musk’s implication that he’s not alone in using these methods.
Musk also defended his gameplay in Diablo IV, where he is known to have cleared a particular endgame level in an impressive time. His former partner Grimes, amid a contentious custody battle over their three children, has mentioned this accomplishment herself in a post on X. NicoWrex likewise made the case in his video that Musk is a skilled gamer, and that the shortcuts he takes are no big deal, drawing many irate comments on YouTube. One critic wrote that Musk essentially “sponsored a team” and was given occasional control of his accounts “like a little kid who wants to be included.” Another called the video a “pathetic attempt at whitewashing someone clearly cheating.”
Wrapping up their DM interview, NicoWrex asked Musk, “Would you be willing to extend the olive branch and as a gesture of good faith, apologize to the PoE community for any misunderstanding that might have been caused by this whole situation?” Musk answered, “What would I be apologizing to the PoE community for? And who are their elected representatives lmao.” As for Path of Exile 2 itself, Musk hinted that he would not be as active in the RPG in the coming days due to other obligations. “I have to prepare for the Presidential transition, so less play for me for the next few days,” he wrote.
Of course, with the kind of Oval Office access Musk is now enjoying, it won’t be hard to convince Trump to award him a “Best Gamer in the World” medal or similar accolade, even if he gives up the hobby altogether. Or he’ll have his White House office turned into a gaming cave — because if there’s one thing we should expect the head of the Department of Government Efficiency to be good at, it’s multitasking.