The Washington Post reports:

Elon Musk — head of six companies, father of 11 children, a friend of the president and the richest man on the planet — often brags to the world about one of his great passions: his skill at video games.

He boasted to Joe Rogan that he ranked among the world’s best players of the role-playing game “Diablo IV,” a feat for which Rogan said he had “to be exceptional — period — as a human being.” Musk told the podcaster Lex Fridman that he “can cruise through Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons like a stroll in the park.” And last month, he shared regular updates on his social network, X, about how quickly he had conquered the global leaderboards of another game, “Path of Exile 2,” blasting “through the ‘toughest’ content, popping monsters like balloons.”

But after poring over his live-streamed gameplay, online sleuths recently made a shocking accusation: Musk had cheated. They suspected that he had pursued a widely mocked tactic known as “boosting,” paying strangers to play his character and rake in loot so that, when he logged in, he could face challenges with the most powerful gear.

Musk fought the allegations before ultimately confessing in messages this month. “It’s impossible to beat players in Asia if you don’t,” he wrote. A few days later, his character could be seen chasing treasure through the game’s sulfuric caverns while Musk was in the Capitol Rotunda, attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

As scandals go, Musk’s drama isn’t exactly Watergate. But it has nevertheless baffled a community of gamers that once deified him as a celebrity geek and has raised questions among former fans about his need for online praise and domination. Why would a famous billionaire, at the peak of his real-world power, care so much about beating nobodies in a fantasy video game? [Continue reading…]