A hot potato: Tech billionaire Elon Musk's recent foray into the world of hardcore gaming has raised eyebrows within the Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2) community. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who previously boasted about his high rankings in games like Diablo 4, streamed an hour and a half of gameplay on January 7, showcasing his level 95 hardcore character, a feat that typically requires immense skill and game knowledge. However, his playing was riddled with inconsistencies and basic errors.
The stream began to raise eyebrows just 18 minutes in when Musk accessed his character's stash. A tab labeled "Elon's map" stood out conspicuously, as other tabs lacked similar personalized names. This oddity sparked speculation that someone else might have curated the tab's contents to facilitate easier gameplay, allowing Musk to display his high-level character without risking its demise.
As the stream progressed, Musk's gameplay continued to falter. His character's movement appeared erratic and his clearspeed was notably slow for a player of his supposed caliber. In one glaring instance, Musk allowed his character's mana meter to remain empty for a full 10 seconds, causing a significant drop in damage output -- a rookie mistake for someone claiming top-tier status.
Further inconsistencies emerged in Musk's item management. He inexplicably left valuable currency items like Chaos Orbs and Exalted Orbs uncollected on the ground, while picking up low-tier keystones that would be useless for a character at his level of progression.
Musk's navigation of the game's Atlas map system also raised questions. He appeared to struggle with identifying which nodes he could run, despite his character having theoretically cleared hundreds, if not thousands, of maps to reach its current level and gear status. At one point, when selecting a map to clear, Musk's commentary was limited to noting, "There are four things here," when referring to the map's modifiers -- a simplistic observation for a supposedly experienced player.
The stream also revealed that Musk was playing without an active loot filter, a standard tool used by high-level players to efficiently manage item drops. Instead, he was seen manually clicking and dragging items into his inventory, a tedious process that would have required sorting through thousands of dropped items to assemble his character's equipment.
Perhaps the most damning evidence of Musk's questionable expertise came when he reviewed his character's equipment. Inspecting his weapon, Musk commented that it was "only level 62" compared to his level 95 character, demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of Path of Exile 2's itemization system. In the game, an item's effectiveness is determined by its item level, not its level requirement - a basic concept that any high-ranking player would undoubtedly understand.
Musk repeated this mistake as he examined each piece of his character's gear, stating, "My equipment's pretty low level compared to my character level, but it seems to work pretty well." This comment was particularly jarring given that his character was equipped with high-end gear that had been meticulously collected, crafted, and optimized for his build.
Redditors got right to the point. Streamer Quin69 stated, "One hundred percent someone plays an account for him," while Asmongold added, "There's no way he played that account. I'm sorry, but somebody played it for him, one hundred f***ing percent."
User InvestmentFew9366 commented, "His gear is better than a lot of full time streamers. No way it is real. Account sharing or boost of some kind." Another Redditor, frenchpatato, pointed out, "I mean he has a f'in mirror tier staff and says he needs to replace it because it's only level 62. You don't need to say anything else."
The incident has sparked a broader discussion about the motivations behind Musk's gaming claims. As Redditor Elbjornbjorn noted, "The weird part to me is that he feels he needs to brag about being a pro gamer for some reason. Dude put a car his company designed into space on a rocket his other company designed, why the hell does he need to brag about gaming?"
Gaming community casts doubt on Elon Musk's Path of Exile 2 achievements
