Elon Musk’s Epic Gaming Blunder: Did He Pay to Power-Up a Character Only to Unintentionally Cause Its Demise?

On January 7, multi-talented billionaire Elon Musk utilized his right-wing hate speech platform X to broadcast a one-hour gaming session of Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2), a newly launched free-to-play action RPG.

At first glance, Musk seems to be among the elite players of the game worldwide, with his character Percy_Verence positioned close to the top of the game’s “Hardcore” ranking, which allows for irreversible character death.

However, as numerous individuals in the gaming community have highlighted, Musk was likely compensating more adept players to advance the character — and there’s substantial proof backing this assertion, as painstakingly recorded on the game’s subreddit.

“What an ego-trip…” one user on X tweeted in a post that has since gained traction. “Elon Musk has been streaming himself playing an overpowered Path of Exile 2 character, proudly and genuinely pretending he achieved that himself, while genuine PoE veterans are laughing uncontrollably as they analyze that charade.”

“Why Elon, why?” they remarked.

Compounding the situation was Percy_Verence’s abrupt demise at level 97 on January 10 — a fate that made it appear as though Musk had sacrificed the high-ranking character due to overconfidence and ineptitude.

“He probably got incited by all the laughter and genuinely attempted to pilot the character for five minutes,” one Redditor mocked. “He can simply acquire another one.”

Adding to the context is that the wealthiest individual globally has garnered a reputation for making unfounded statements to promote his own interests. Just last week, he made a prejudiced claim that diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring initiatives were responsible for the wildfires in Los Angeles — only to be directly called out by a firefighter.

However, fabricating claims about excelling at a video game — something an insecure middle school student might do — does seem rather extreme. Is Musk’s ego genuinely this fragile?

Warnings were already being raised following Musk’s PoE 2 livestream on January 7.

As many notable PoE 2 players immediately observed, there was something quite amiss with Musk’s performance. In a recent video, a New Zealand game streamer known as Quin69TV pointed out indications that Musk was clueless about the game mechanics — despite controlling a level 97 character, ranked 12th on the Hardcore leaderboard.

 

“Let me assist you in grasping how challenging it is to reach that level,” Quin69TV remarked. “Two weeks into the league when others are playing the game, staying up for 40 to 50 hours without rest, solely playing Path of Exile, the most dedicated players globally, the top-ranked player on the Hardcore trading league was at level 93.”

“Each time you level up, it becomes progressively more difficult to gain experience,” he clarified. Essentially, to even advance to 97, gamers would need to engage with the game “every single day for most of their day.”

Additionally, Quin69TV displayed that Musk appeared to have difficulty maneuvering through the game, at one moment “sitting there like an elderly person, clicking this node, anticipating something would occur.”

Musk “ultimately kind of concedes after a while and then recognizes his blunder,” Quin69TV elaborated.

Managing his inventory appeared not to be his strength either.

“It’s almost as if he lacks any comprehension of what you’re supposed to do with” his loot, Quin69TV contended.

At a certain moment, during a boss battle, Musk ran directly past a “chaos orb,” which is “one of the most critical currencies” in the game, according to a player named Kriparrian, who joined Quin69TV in dissecting the footage.

Instead, Musk collected items referred to as “maps,” which are fundamentally “worthless” for higher-level characters.

Throughout his stream, Musk also frequently revisited low-level maps, which are traditionally utilized to “grind” or “farm” experience.

“I’m not certain if he’s attempting to mislead those viewing this stream into believing he’s undertaking something incredibly challenging,” Quin69TV remarked.

“It’s merely him being incompetent; it’s just him being poor at this character,” Charles “penguinz0” White Jr. asserted in a separate reaction video. “The person behind the scenes overseeing this account and enhancing it allows Elon to tackle these very simple maps where even he can get away with being incompetent and not face consequences.”

“Honestly, I don’t even believe Elon Musk has completed the campaign,” Quin69TV speculated.

In conclusion, Musk has forfeited a considerable amount of goodwill and trust in gaming communities due to his awkward pretense.

“A lifetime of claiming credit for others’ accomplishments has led to this,” a YouTube comment on Musk’s live stream states.

“Being the wealthiest individual on the planet, yet also the most miserable loser is quite a paradox,” another commenter remarked.

More on Musk: Firefighter Confronts Elon Musk in Person