Submission + - Elon Musk admits to paying others to "boost" his game characters to top of ranks (washingtonpost.com) 1
ubermiester writes: From WaPo: Musk "...boasted to Joe Rogan that he ranked among the world’s best players of the role-playing game 'Diablo IV'" and bragged "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 the gaming community "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."
“Elon lost the trust of all gamers overnight,” Dan Nelson, a programmer in Philadelphia, said in an X post liked more than 100,000 times. “Boosting your account and lying about it is the worst offense. incredibly cringe, fragile ego on full display.”
But the gaming community "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."
“Elon lost the trust of all gamers overnight,” Dan Nelson, a programmer in Philadelphia, said in an X post liked more than 100,000 times. “Boosting your account and lying about it is the worst offense. incredibly cringe, fragile ego on full display.”
