Elon Musk Publicly Trashes Gaming Streamer And Leaks Their DMs After Public Criticism

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Elon Musk criticized and posted his private messages with a popular gaming streamer after the streamer called him out for allegedly faking his gaming prowess.

For a while now, Musk — despite surely being incredibly busy running the multitude of companies he owns — has touted his various gaming achievements on social media. In fact, when he boasted about being one of the top players in the world in the online role-playing game “Diablo IV,” reports at the time indicated it was actually true.

Within the last few days, however, Musk’s credibility within the gaming community has taken a serious hit. On Jan. 7, Musk streamed himself playing “Path of Exile 2,” another role-playing game. The account he used, according to reporting from Futurism, ranked among the top players in the game’s “hardcore” mode. Most notable about the game mode is the fact that it includes a permanent death function that will delete a character as soon as they’re killed in the game. Musk’s character was a level 97, suggesting at least some level of mastery of the game.

That stream led to confusion within the “Path of Exile” community. One Reddit user even compiled an extensive list of instances in which Musk had little or no knowledge of game functions that a hardcore player would surely be familiar with. That led to the theory that Musk simply paid actual players to boost his account so that he could look like top-ranked player himself.

When the popular streamer known as Asmongold got involved and published a video about the saga, Musk unfollowed him and removed his blue checkmark from X (formerly known as Twitter).

In response to Asmongold’s videos reacting to the controversy, Musk claimed in a tweet he’s “not his own man.” He then, puzzlingly, posted a screenshot of an innocuous conversation the two had about the editors behind Asmongold’s YouTube channel.

“Asmon behaves like a maverick ‘independent.'” Musk said in the tweet. “But in reality has to ask his boss for permission before he can do anything. He is not his own man.”

As mentioned in the community note, Asmongold has been open about the role his editors play in his content creation. Additionally, it is common practice for streamers and YouTubers to hire editors in order to publish content as frequently as possible.