On its face, the claim feels improbable: In addition to being the world’s richest man, the chief executive of multiple companies and a key adviser to President Trump, Elon Musk says he is also a world-class video game player.
It is a claim that Mr. Musk has repeated through the years. He has an account on X, his social media platform, dedicated to posting highlights of his gameplay. He has streamed with some of the top competitive video game players in the world on platforms like Twitch. He has even etched his name on the global leader boards of certain games.
But last week, the community of gamers he’s long tried to impress turned against him. It started with a livestream of Mr. Musk playing Path of Exile 2, a popular action role-playing game known for its difficulty. Despite his account showing he had earned one of the game’s highest levels, his gameplay looked like that of an amateur.
Internet sleuths made YouTube videos and took to Reddit threads to dissect his gameplay, exposing mistakes a novice would make. Other gamers pointed out that Mr. Musk’s Path of Exile account has been active at times he couldn’t have been playing himself, like on Monday morning, while he was at Mr. Trump’s inauguration. Mr. Musk’s account status indicated that he was logged into the game and inside of a “map,” which meant it was possible — though not certain — that someone on the account was playing the game while Mr. Musk was sitting behind Mr. Trump.
“How are you there?” one streamer questioned while watching a split screen of the game and Mr. Musk at the Capitol Rotunda, as Mr. Trump was being sworn in. “How are you in the Sulphuric Caverns right now, Elon?”
Thousands of gamers took to X to accuse Mr. Musk of “boosting” his account — that is, paying for upgrades on third-party websites, or hiring people to play his accounts for him. It was the gaming equivalent of stolen valor.
It is rare that something the billionaire touches, whether he is launching rockets or slaying digital Goatmen, results in anything but controversy. But for Mr. Musk, “hardcore gamer” is a key part of the identity he has tried to project: a polymathic nerd’s nerd who is equal parts auto mogul, space pioneer and serial tech entrepreneur.
Even as he has become one of the most powerful people in the Trump administration, he has gone to great lengths to show he appreciates video game culture. And among Mr. Musk’s very online and very male fandom, great gaming skills are something to be admired.
“He wants people to really look up to him,” said Rod Breslau, a longtime video game analyst and consultant. “He needs to be good at video games so that he can be cool to all of the fans, all his tech events, all the people that are in his tech, gamer and A.I. world.”
Mr. Musk has pushed for a high profile in the gaming world for years. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the billionaire, Mr. Musk demanded a role in Cyberpunk 2077, the much-hyped, futuristic video game franchise that debuted in 2020. (His former girlfriend Claire Boucher, who performs music as Grimes and with whom he has three children, played a character in the game.)
He has streamed himself playing Diablo 4, the brooding, monster-slaying series that broke sales records when it was released. And he has fawned over the smash hit role-playing game Elden Ring, calling it “the most beautiful art” he had ever seen in a post to X.
But hardcore gamers have been skeptical. In 2022, Mr. Musk raised eyebrows in the gaming community when he posted a photo of his Elden Ring character’s “build,” which is the assorted types of equipment players can use to customize their characters. Fans of the game called it a “trash build,” composed of a series of nonsensical equipment choices made by someone who seemed to have no idea how to play the game.
Mr. Musk discussed his gaming in a November interview with Joe Rogan, the celebrity podcaster. Mr. Musk cited an unofficial leaderboard that showed him ranked as one of the top 20 Diablo 4 players in the world.
Gamers questioned how that was possible. The amount of time needed to gain some of the items and abilities Mr. Musk’s game character had attained — as much as 10 hours of gameplay a day, by some estimates — didn’t seem to line up with his travel and event schedule.
Mr. Musk fired back at naysayers in posts on X — some of which he later deleted — and attacked some of the critics for their own gaming abilities.
But a week ago, he admitted to Nicholas Hayes, a gaming YouTube personality, that he had, indeed, boosted his accounts.
In messages Mr. Hayes shared in a YouTube video, he asked the billionaire if he boosted, and Mr. Musk responded with a 100% emoji.
“It’s impossible to beat the players in Asia if you don’t,” Mr. Musk said in messages. He later reposted the video to his own X feed. He did not respond to requests for comment.
In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Hayes said he wasn’t surprised by the revelation. He has played Diablo with Mr. Musk in the past, and he recalled moments when the billionaire implied he had not earned his character’s gear himself, or that another player had given it to him as a gift.
“I mean, it’s Elon Musk,” Mr. Hayes said. “If you play with him, you’re probably going to give him a bunch of stuff.”
Still, Mr. Musk defended his gaming aptitude, and said in the messages to Mr. Hayes that boosting is commonplace among elite players in Diablo. And two of the mothers of his children have come to his defense.
“Just for my personal pride, I would like to state that the father of my children was the first american druid in diablo to clear abattoir of zir and ended that season as best in the USA,” Ms. Boucher wrote on X, referring to one of the game’s difficult dungeon maps. “I did observe these things with my own eyes.”
Shivon Zilis, who has worked with Mr. Musk at several of his companies and is known to be the mother of three of his children, posted a video last week of Mr. Musk playing Diablo. In the replies, she recounted a memory of when he gamed for 17 hours on Christmas Day in 2023.
“He took breaks for family meals and Xmas presents but was too excited for sleep, which is how he made both time with the kiddos and a 17 hour AoZ push work that day,” she wrote, referring to a challenge in Diablo. “Was a joy to see him having so much fun with it!”
Boosting violates the terms and conditions of Diablo IV and Path of Exile 2. But the market for third-party upgrades is robust, and players can choose from a number of websites to upgrade their accounts, most of which charge thousands of dollars.
A spokesman for Blizzard, the publisher of Diablo, declined to comment. Grinding Gear Games, the publisher of Path of Exile, did not respond to a request for comment.
Some Path of Exile players who have known Mr. Musk to be an avid gamer for decades were disappointed to find out he had paid to enhance his account, including Dennis Fong, one of the first professional e-sports players.
In an interview, Mr. Fong recounted playing the video game Quake on the same Stanford University servers as Mr. Musk in the 1990s. (Mr. Musk was not a student.) “He was decent,” Mr. Fong said of Mr. Musk, who used the screen name Zip2, the name of the company he had recently started. “Not one of the best in the world.”
When Mr. Musk bragged about his Diablo gameplay on X and on Mr. Rogan’s podcast last year, Mr. Fong said he wanted to believe it was true, as Diablo is generally considered an easy game without much of a competitive scene. But watching the Path of Exile gameplay, Mr. Fong said, it was “obvious he had no idea what was going on.”
Mr. Breslau said Mr. Musk reminded him of a teenager. “In that way,” Mr. Breslau added, “he is a true gamer.”