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Elon Musk's video game character caught levelling up during Trump inauguration

Elon Musk's video game character caught levelling up during Trump inauguration

Gamers called him out on it

Elon Musk's video game character was caught levelling up during Trump's inauguration.

The Tesla CEO has been in the news for allegedly cheating popular video games by 'hiring better users to play for him'.

While he's a man of many talents including being an owner of several companies, a right-hand man to the US President, the head of DOGE (not to mention fathering several children) is also reportedly the top Diablo 4 player in the world. Something doesn't sound right.

Well, the rumours have been addressed after the billionaire's extremely high-level character in RPG Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2) was seen levelling up while he was attending Donald Trump's inauguration.

"How are you there?" said popular New Zealand streamer Quin69 in a live stream when he noticed the mismatch. "How are you in the Sulphuric Caverns right now, Elon?" He exclaimed: "Bro, stop. Elon, you're in a map right now, level 96."

Tomohiro Ohsumi / Stringer / Getty
Tomohiro Ohsumi / Stringer / Getty

Turns out, Musk might not be the hardcore gamer he’s tried to make us believe he is.

A few days ago, after days of dodging accusations and even leaking private messages with another streamer, Musk finally admitted that he was cheating.

In an exchange of DMs on X (formerly Twitter), the SpaceX founder told a PoE 2 streamer who goes by the handle NikoWrex that he had "level boosted."

To all you non-gamers, level boosting is essentially when low-ranked players hire better players to increase their rank in a game - and it’s usually frowned upon by other players.

"But when I post a video of a game or am streaming, that's 100% me," Musk wrote in his DMs to NikoWrex, which were later exposed in a recent YouTube video. He then tried to justify his actions in a follow-up message, reading: "The top accounts in Diablo or PoE require multiple people playing the account to win a leveling race".

Pool / Pool /Getty
Pool / Pool /Getty

For a while now, Musk has attempted to make it appear as if he was a proficient and highly ranked video game player, even boasting to Joe Rogan that he was in the top 20 global Diablo 4 players worldwide last year.

Alas, that appears to be nothing further from the truth.

Gamers have called him out on it, with one YouTube comment reading: "So Elon levels up his video game characters the same way he runs his companies. Pay others to do the hard work and then take all the credit."

To make matters worse, account boosting directly violates the terms of service for both Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2, according to PC Gamer.

But when have rules ever been a big concern for Musk?

Featured Image Credit: KENNY HOLSTON/THE NEW YORK TIMES-Contributor/Getty / playpathofexile/Instagram