Somebody is paying POE 2 for Elon Musk

A recent stream from Elon Musk playing Path of Exile 2 has brought accusations that he’s cheating.
Hardcore PoE2 players have questioned the billionaire’s playstyle and decisions that make no sense for a player at that level.
Consensus seems to be that Musk is paying somebody to play his character on his behalf.

One would think that the world's richest man is too busy trying to get to Mars, playing First-Buddy with the President Elect and running a social media company to play games. But Elon Musk proved the haters wrong by being a hardcore gamer™.

The billionaire has a long history of being a gamer, he even reportedly created his own game called Blastar when he was a wee lad. More recently however, the billionaire has tried his hand at Elden Ring with one of the worst builds to ever grace the game. However, Musk found some success and earned gamer credentials in Diablo 4 where he rose to the top of the ranks in the game's The Pit. This area of the game is a timed dungeon that tasks players with quickly clearing out mobs of enemies and eventually a boss for big rewards.

At the end of last year GGG released Path of Exile 2 into Early Access. For many, the Path of Exile (PoE) series scratches the Diablo itch that even Diablo struggles to scratch and as such, many Diablo creators shifted to PoE2 in the last month, including Musk himself.

Unfortunately for Musk however, the legitimacy of his playtime in PoE2 is being called into question by other gamers.

Last week, Musk took to X to livestream himself playing PoE2 with his level 95 Hardcore character. This is an impressive feat in and of itself as once players start climbing levels, especially on a Hardcore character, the difficulty ramps up substantially. As you may expect, one has to be deeply familiar with the game in order to stand a chance at this level and at the weekend, Musk's abilities were brought into question.

The problems start with PoE2's map or rather Musk's apparent misunderstanding of the map. PoE2 creators have pointed out that they way Musk clicks on the map is suspicious and not in-line with the behaviour of somebody who has ploughed the time needed to get to the point he has. Others have also pointed out that Musk has labelled a tab in the game “Elon's map” which is just weird unless others are using your account as well. There are several times where Musk clicks a point on the map that a player at this level would recognise isn't an area they can go to which is odd.

But, maybe this is just Musk being Musk. We know he's not what some would call normal so we're marking that down as weird but not a smoking gun.

However, as the stream continues there are other oddities. Musk refers to modifiers on a map as “things”, something somebody at this level would know about. He also just talks like somebody seeing something for the first time. For example, there's a point where he mentions meditating before battle but the way he delivers that message makes it seem like he's not entirely sure what is happening.

The most egregious part of the stream however, came when Musk started criticising his gear. As many have pointed out, the billionaire has a severe misunderstanding of how gear works in PoE2. Despite having some of the best gear in the game, Musk whines about his weapon – one of the best and rarest items in the game – only being at level 62. Thing is, that isn't the level of the item, it's the level the player needs to be to equip said item. That is, to our mind, a basic mechanic that somebody that has reached this level of play would understand.

The billionaire was also seen ignoring a key currency for the point he's at in the game.

This was the smoking gun for many PoE2 players as Musk complaining about his gear only being at a certain level was a clear sign that he had no idea what he was talking about.

This has kicked off a raft of accusations that Musk has either purchased an account or is paying somebody to boost his account. To prove this, folks have shared evidence that Musk was online at the same time that he was hosting an X Space with Germany's far-right AfD. Some have even claimed that Musk has received whispers in Chinese while playing.

However, the most damning evidence that Musk is more than likely using a boosted account is the fact that the man is busy. As many have pointed out, getting to the position his character was at would require hundreds of hours locked into the game day in and day out. Framed against Musk's own stream of consciousness on X, that seems an impossible feat for him to accomplish unless he's paying somebody to play on his behalf.

As of time of writing, the allegations that Musk is cheating by paying somebody to grind for him are just that, allegations. While there are what look like smoking guns, barring GGG or Musk himself admitting to it, we're all just speculating.

Many are questioning why Musk would do this and go to all of this effort to prove that he is a good gamer. We don't have an answer to that question aside from him being terminally online and being desperate for affection from the unwashed masses.

The billionaire has yet to comment on the accusations being thrown at him and we doubt he will. We do however doubt that he will be live streaming PoE2 again anytime soon.

At the weekend Musk's hardcore character died, prompting jeers from others climbing the leaderboard. Maybe now he'll learn to pick up better items than a “level 62 staff".