Elon Musk used the skies and the screen to demonstrate his Starlink Wi-Fi and his alleged gaming skills in what will surely go down as one of the year’s most inadvertently revealing livestreams. Only one of those had any signal, which was unfortunate for the richest guy in the world. Aboard his private jet, Musk fired up Path of Exile 2, a famously challenging dungeon crawler and began streaming live on X. The objective? a demonstration of Starlink’s mid-air power during a “airborne continuity test.” The outcome? An ego crash of legendary proportions at high altitude.
Things started to go south as quickly as a Tesla on autopilot as soon as he hit “Go Live.” Musk had courageously selected the game’s most painful “hardcore” difficulty setting, which may have been a metaphor for attempting to gain the respect of gamers in the face of 35,000 feet of trolls.
Almost instantly, the conversation erupted with a ferocity usually found only in reality TV reunion shows. In addition to criticizing Musk’s gameplay, viewers brought with them years’ worth of repressed online resentment. The following were some of the highlights: “You have no friends and will die alone,” scathing reminders about overdue child support, and charges that you were “god awful at games.”
Under the guise of influencer Ashley St. Clair, who is allegedly embroiled in a legal dispute with Musk, one sly impostor even asserted that they purchased early access to Path of Exile 2 in order to implore him to pay up live. Others brought back comments from his estranged daughter Vivian, who recently accused her father of being a gaming scammer who had his children use Overwatch to commit fraud.
In spite of the noise, Musk persisted. In a way. He navigated through chat settings with the dexterity of someone trying to end a Zoom call on a microwave, played techno (including Grimes’s music from his ex-partner), and looked in stony stillness.
A person that focused on the soundtrack then offered a scathing remark, saying, “Not him trying to drown out the haters with music made by his ex who hates him.” peak loser conduct.
He murmured something about a “lot of r—-s in the chat” after a while, obviously shaken, adding a slur to the already smoldering heap of PR gaffes. Musk muttered something about a connection problem and abruptly stopped streaming after his virtual persona perished for the third time. The video was quickly removed, but nothing truly dies, as the internet has often shown us. In the game, aside from Elon. Several times.
Redditors quickly archived the video and even faster with their response. He was obviously still online when he claimed to have lost the connection. “Classic,” a user said. “Before acknowledging that he is a bad gamer, he will blame Starlink.” A harsher summary was provided by another: “A man baby, 53 years old.” It is embarrassing. “Elon How can you appear so foolish and unattractive? Why is your Tesla business failing? Another person wrote, “What happened, buddy?”
