Elon Musk is one of the busiest men in the world: he is running six companies, has 14 children and is one of President Trump’s most senior advisers.
This week he acknowledged that he was leading his businesses “with great difficulty” while trying to reshape the US federal government.
But for one lifelong hobby he appears to still find time: playing video games.
The tech billionaire has installed a TV, described by a source as “massive”, inside his White House office to facilitate carving out time for his hobby during breaks.
On his orders, the TV was procured for his office in the Eisenhower building on the White House complex in recent days, Politico reported. The office is the epicentre of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), tasked by Trump with slashing the federal budget and workforce.
In the weeks since Trump took office, Musk and his team have set about dismantling entire government agencies, fired thousands of career civil servants and gained access to the personal data of millions of Americans.
Musk was praised for his “fantastic work” by President Trump
MOLLY RILEY/WHITE HOUSE PHOTO/ALAMY
Musk’s work has outraged political opponents, while a mounting global boycott of Tesla has wiped an estimated $100 billion off his net worth since the start of the year. He retains the enthusiastic support of the president, however, who again said this week that Musk was doing “a fantastic job”.
Beyond his role as space pioneer, car mogul and tech entrepreneur, Musk has long courted the admiration of the gaming community, which underpins his vast, predominantly male, online fan base.
Musk has posted highlights of his gameplay to his 219 million followers on X, the social media platform he bought in 2022. His name features on the global leaderboards of some of his favourite games.
However, Musk’s claim to be a world-class player has been questioned in the past, and has come under closer scrutiny since he took up his role in the Trump administration.
In the week of Trump’s inauguration in January, Musk hosted a livestream as he played the action role-playing game Path of Exile 2. The tech billionaire was eager to point out that he was playing on the highest level of difficulty.
Gamers claimed that Musk’s Path of Exile account had been active at times when he could not have been playing
“This is max difficulty on Hardcore. If there’s a way to get higher difficulty, I don’t know what it is. This is everything maxed out,” Musk told viewers.
Some gamers noted, however, that despite the high level, Musk’s gameplay appeared to be that of a novice. “I can say after watching an hour of this livestream that I would put, like, $100,000 or more on a bet … that Elon did not level this character from level 1 to level 90 himself,” the YouTube gamer Cynicalex posted.
The controversy deepened when gamers spotted that Musk’s Path of Exile account had been active at times when he could not have been playing himself. This included the hours when he was visible on television, standing behind Trump at the inauguration. Hundreds took to social media to accuse Musk of paying to upgrade his account or, most disgracefully within the gaming community, hiring people to play for him.
“Elon, how are you there?” one gamer posted over a split screen of Musk with Trump at the US Capitol while his Path of Exile account appeared to continue playing. “How are you in the Sulphuric Caverns right now, Elon?”
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