Elon Musk’s much-publicized gaming prowess has come under intense scrutiny in recent days and he’s not taking it too well. The tech billionaire unfollowed Twitch streamer and YouTuber Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt on X (formerly known as Twitter) and proceeded to leak private DMs between the two after Hoyt joined a chorus of gaming content creators calling Musk a fraud when it came to his alleged Path of Exile 2 obsession.
Musk’s recent claims of having one of the highest-ranked characters in Path of Exile 2‘s hardcore mode began to unravel as soon as he shared footage of himself playing the hit action-RPG in real-time. Hardcore mode means if your character dies even once they are gone forever, making achieving a high level like 97 not only an intensely lengthy process but also a very difficult one. How could the CEO of multiple companies, who is now also a close advisor to the incoming Trump administration and constantly posting on social media, pull something like that off?
Probably by paying other people to play for him, a common practice in games know as account boosting. At least that was one conclusion reached by other Path of Exile 2 players, including streamers Casual Kripp and Quin69TV. They called out the way it looked like he was playing the game for the first time when streaming it earlier this month, and was seemingly unaware of basic facts about how its loot progression systems work. The Wall Street Journal and others began to question Musk’s claims around gaming, including his recent alleged Diablo 4 leaderboard achievements.
Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt was one of the biggest content creators to call Musk out, and went so far as to say that he would begin streaming on the tech billionaire’s own platform, X, if he could prove that he got his hardcore mode Path of Exile 2 character to level 97 all by himself (the character ended up dying last week). “I feel like it’s a universal negative for him to do this and it just makes him look like an insecure asshole by doing it,” Hoyt said.
That was four days ago, on January 12. By January 15, people began to notice that Musk had unfollowed Hoyt on X. Musk then went a step further and leaked internal DMs between the two and accused Hoyt of being a puppet. “Asmon behaves like a maverick ‘independent,’ but in reality has to ask his boss for permission before he can do anything,” Musk tweeted overnight. “He is not his own man.”
To prove his point, he shared a screenshot of a DM between himself and Hoyt where the streamer explained how he employs two editors to cut and publish almost all of his content online. “So basically any content I post is edited or uploaded by them and they just get a cut of the ad rev, it’s a super good system tbh almost everyone on YT does it,” Hoyt wrote at the time. “Interesting,” replies Musk.
The world’s richest man went on to argue that he’s proven his gaming bona fides across hundreds of live streams and accused Hoyt of being good at “caustic commentary” but bad at actual video games. “Leaking my DM’s is one thing but this is absolutely uncalled for,” Hoyt responded. This all played out on X, which Musk purchased for $44 billion in 2022. As one of its last acts before the new administration is sworn in, the SEC filed a lawsuit against the CEO for failing to abide by disclosure rules prior to the sale. He was probably just too busy gaming.
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