- Elon Musk, the world’s most influential entrepreneur in a generation, was mercilessly jeered at by an online gaming audience still angry that he had so casually lied about cheating at video games.
Gamers have not yet forgiven Elon Musk for lying so casually about being one of the top-ranked players in the world for two different video games, and on Saturday, they wanted him to know it.
During an attempt to livestream playing Path of Exile 2 from his private jet, the world’s richest man was mocked and jeered at mercilessly by his online audience in the live chat.
Seemingly frustrated that he kept having to manually hide the ridicule in the live chat, the CEO said his Starlink satellite broadband wasn’t holding up under the load and called it a day.
“Lost the connection,” he said, repeating again, “Connection lost” before the stream ended.
Gamers, however, weren’t buying that story.
“He rage quit and blamed it on Starlink, what a dumb a–, dude,” Hasan Piker, a popular Twitch streamer with over 2.8 million followers, later told his own viewers. “This is one of the only instances where a man, who is so pathetic, will literally end up sh—ing on his other property because he’s so desperate to blame anything else.”
The Tesla CEO did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Musk never apologized to gamers for the lie
In January, it emerged that Musk had cheated playing the games he claimed to have mastered, hiring people to level up his characters all the while hiding the fact that he could barely play the games, let alone be among their top performers. In one instance, his Path of Exile 2 character was caught playing at the same time Musk was attending Donald Trump’s inauguration.
When his lie was found out, he showed zero remorse for going on podcasts to take credit for accomplishments he seemingly had nothing to do with and bask in the lavish praise from hosts Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman. He also didn’t see any need to apologize to a community that prides itself on respecting skill and dedication over social or economic status.
Musk has been trying to market his satellite-based broadband service Starlink, as well as lure gamers from Amazon’s Twitch platform onto X, and it was in the course of one of these streams that a PoE2 player realized quickly he wasn’t just incapable of competing with the other top five players in the game worldwide, he barely even knew the game’s essential mechanics.
This time, Musk took up the challenge of a popular streamer to prove he was indeed the semiprofessional gamer he claimed to be and started PoE2 from the very beginning with basic-level gear rather than the most powerful the game has to offer.
‘He knows he’s a fraud’
Rather than vindicate himself, though, Musk kept losing, including to the game’s very first boss fight that new players encounter during the tutorial stage.
“There’s no way he makes it out of Act 1, he’s just going to dying over and over and over again,” said Quin, the Australian streamer who uncovered his cheating in the first place. “He knows he’s a fraud.”
By that point, viewers in the chatroom were already tearing into him for his lying, making fun of his looks, and throwing shade at his personal life, with over a dozen confirmed children from at least three different women.
“YOU HAVE NO REAL FRIENDS AND WILL DIE ALONE,” wrote one user whose account was called “Elon_Musk_is_a_peedophile,” before hitting return repeatedly so the message would keep appearing.
Another viewer made fun of his admission last month the entrepreneur had paid right-wing influencer Ashley St. Clair $2.5 million so she could raise their child in secret, claiming it would be safer for their son if no one finds out he exists. She ultimately revealed their affair publicly, and later sold the Tesla he gave her after he cut payments.
“Elon. It’s me, Ashley St. Claire. I have no other means of contacting you so I bought PoE2 early access just for this,” the user wrote in jest. “Please pay your child support.”
