Is Elon Musk lying about being an expert gamer?

Elon Musk is the world’s richest man (quite possibly in history), controls half the world’s satellites and most of its space launch capacity, and is “first buddy” to the incoming president of the United States.

That would probably be more than enough for most of us to be getting on with, in terms of accomplishment and recognition. But it’s not enough for the eternally recognition-thirsty Musk, who also insists on being recognised as one of the world’s greatest gamers.

Last year, he claimed to be among the top-ranked players of the fantasy hack-‘em-up Diablo 4. In 2025, he’s moved on to the newly launched action role-playing game Path of Exile 2, where he livestreamed himself playing as a level 97 hardcore character, apparently ranked 12th in the world on the game’s leaderboard.

The problem for Musk is that while almost none of us know what it takes to run a multi-billion dollar company, let alone several at once, quite a few people know exactly what it takes to have a level 97 Path of Exile 2 character – and they have some serious questions after watching Musk stream.

The best account of the saga comes from the YouTuber Quin69TV, who noticed no shortage of problems with Musk’s gaming. First among these was that there’s no shortcut to getting to the top levels of Path of Exile 2: Musk would have to have been playing it 16+ hours a day, every day, to get to the level he was.

But beyond that, the world’s richest man didn’t really seem to know how to actually play the game. He struggled to operate the map, ran out of the key resource mana and didn’t even know how to use a potion. He didn’t bother to pick up one of the most valuable currencies in the game when it dropped for him, and crucially didn’t seem to understand the gear his character was wearing or what made it good.

None of this would be the case for a player who’d spent even 50 or so hours on the game – let alone one of the world’s top 20. The bizarre discrepancy has led people to wonder whether it could truly be the case that Musk is paying someone to play the game on his behalf, round the clock, so that he can pretend to be amazing at it.

If anyone on the planet was that desperate to be liked by gamers, it would certainly be Musk – but he’s picked something hard to fake, and is being called out by a group that takes this stuff seriously.

Is Musk faking his gaming prowess? Serious gamers want to know…