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In today's video I examine Elon's insane claim that he used to be one of the best Quake players in the world.
Thanks to anyone and everyone in my discord server and the NA Quakeworld discord server for trying to help. Thanks to Kovaak for getting me in touch with Thresh!
Thanks to @Coffeezilla and @penguinz0 for being guests.
Please follow me on these platforms, it really helps!
Patreon: http://patreon.com/karljobst
Twitter: https://twitter.com/karljobstgaming
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/karljobst
Discord: https://discord.gg/EjDRvg7
In today's video I examine Elon's insane claim that he used to be one of the best Quake players in the world.
Thanks to anyone and everyone in my discord server and the NA Quakeworld discord server for trying to help. Thanks to Kovaak for getting me in touch with Thresh!
Thanks to @Coffeezilla and @penguinz0 for being guests.
Please follow me on these platforms, it really helps!
Patreon: http://patreon.com/karljobst
Twitter: https://twitter.com/karljobstgaming
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/karljobst
Discord: https://discord.gg/EjDRvg7
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VideojuegosTranscripción
00:00Hello, you absolute legends.
00:02In January of 2025, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, was exposed for lying to the
00:08gaming community about his video game accomplishments.
00:11In December, he had posted to Twitter numerous times on his old account, bragging about all
00:15of the work he'd put into his Path of Exile 2 hardcore character.
00:19On hardcore mode, if your character dies a single time, the character is lost forever.
00:24So getting to a very high level is a difficult task, and Elon was very proud of himself for
00:29how far he'd gotten.
00:31On January 7, he streamed Path of Exile 2 on his main Twitter account, and he showcased
00:36just how far his character had come.
00:39It was now one of the highest leveled characters in the entire world, which would have taken
00:43many, many hours to accomplish.
00:45And not only would it have taken a long time, but he would have needed to be very efficient
00:50to keep up with all of the other gamers who weren't also hanging out with Donald Trump
00:54and allegedly running multiple companies.
00:57But there was a problem.
00:58It was obvious from Elon's gameplay that he had no idea what he was doing.
01:02He was a complete noob.
01:04And not only did he lack the basic fundamentals of high level Path of Exile play, but he seemed
01:09to lack some basic fundamentals of action RPGs in general.
01:13It was immediately obvious that he had barely played the game, let alone played enough to
01:18level his character to the point it was.
01:20Elon had been lying.
01:22The truth is that he had been paying other people to play his account for him, which
01:26he has since admitted.
01:28This entire situation was bizarre.
01:30The man has more money and more power than you could ever want, yet he still felt compelled
01:35to lie about something so trivial.
01:37And to top it off, his reaction to being exposed was arguably more childish and insecure than
01:43the original lie itself.
01:45But what I find interesting is that it was this particular claim that seems to have really
01:49ignited this entire scandal.
01:51Because it's one thing to say that you've leveled up a character in a video game, but
01:55it's another thing entirely to say that you used to be one of the best players in the
01:59world at one of the most competitive video games of all time.
02:22And not only was he one of the best, but he was even semi-professional.
02:33In fact, he was part of one of the best teams, and they even came second in the first esports
02:38tournament ever, and he won thousands of dollars.
02:59Elon has been making these claims for an entire decade, and they are orders of magnitude more
03:04outrageous than his Path of Exile 2 claims.
03:07And yet, they didn't seem to cause any real backlash.
03:10Of course, once Elon was classified as a liar in general because of his Path of Exile claims,
03:15all of his other claims of video game prowess were discarded as well, as almost certainly
03:20being fabricated.
03:22If he lied about his Path of Exile achievements, he probably lied about his Quake achievements
03:27too.
03:28But that wasn't good enough for me.
03:29Elon made very specific claims about Quake history.
03:33He pointed to a specific tournament that occurred around a certain time period, and
03:37he even gave an exact prize amount for second place, which if true, would have been the
03:42biggest prize pool in Quake by far for the time.
03:45If this tournament existed, it would have left a footprint.
03:49However, if you just search Google for this supposed tournament, you will find nothing.
03:54There are multiple websites chronicling the history of Quake multiplayer, and they all
03:58list the major tournaments.
04:00But Elon's tournament is nowhere to be found.
04:03Honestly, I was ready to make a public statement that Elon's Quake claims were completely false.
04:09But then, out of nowhere, I found a crumb.
04:12A single breadcrumb that eventually led me all the way to the truth.
04:16In today's video, we will examine, among other things, Elon's claim of being one of the best
04:21Quake players in the world.
04:23Is it completely untrue, or is there even a hint of substance to what he says?
04:28Let's find out.
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05:50I don't have a lifetime of playing video games.
05:52At one point I was, you know, maybe one of the best Quake players in the world.
05:59I actually won money for what I think was the first paid esports tournament in the US.
06:04Elon has claimed many times that he was one of the best Quake players in the world, and
06:09his evidence to back up this claim is always the same.
06:12Elon states that he was in a team that came second in the first paid national esports
06:17tournament in America.
06:38At one point I was quite competitive at Quake, played what I think was maybe the first paid
06:44esports thing in the US.
06:47My team came second.
06:48It's not a super long-term career being a pro gamer.
06:51I was semi-pro back in ancient times with Quake, so I actually made money in the first
07:00paid tournament in the US.
07:01We were one of the best teams in the country, actually.
07:06I think it was the first, I think the first paid esports thing in the US.
07:13We ended up coming second in that.
07:14I think we made a few thousand dollars or something, so it was pretty good at Quake
07:18back in the day.
07:19In theory, this should be easy to confirm, as it's a very specific claim, and the amount
07:24of money that Elon claims to have won for a second place, several thousand dollars,
07:29means that the prize pool would have had to have been massive.
07:32This absolutely would have left some kind of historical footprint.
07:35A superficial search of Google, however, yields no results that match this description.
07:40There are multiple websites that have been preserved that document the history of Quake,
07:45including the significant tournaments, and from these resources, a tournament of this
07:50size just didn't occur.
07:52The first Quake tournament that has both a cash prize and also historical evidence is
07:56the Red Annihilation tournament which had its finals in June of 97.
08:01This is one of the most significant tournaments in esports history, precisely because it's
08:05seen by many people to be the first true esports tournament, at least as we know esports
08:11today.
08:12In this event, 16 qualified players were flown to E397 for the finals, and the winner, Dennis
08:18Fong, aka Thresh, took first place, which had a prize of $5,000 cash and one of John
08:24Carmack's Ferraris.
08:26Red Annihilation helped to popularize Quake competition, and shortly after this event,
08:31the first esports leagues such as the Professional Gamers League and the Cyberathlete Professional
08:36League were formed.
08:37From Red Annihilation onwards, everything is extremely well documented, and there is
08:42no existence of a team tournament that had a second place prize of several thousand dollars.
08:47And there is also no historical evidence of any tournaments, prize pool or not, that Elon
08:52Musk or his team came second in.
08:54So if Elon did win anything, it must have been something after Quake was released in
08:59June 96, but before Red Annihilation, a year later.
09:03Though even if this tournament exists, whether or not it was the first paid national esports
09:08tournament really depends on your own definition of what esports and paid means.
09:13The reality is that people have been competing in national tournaments in video games and
09:18receiving money from it for decades.
09:20For example, in 1980, there was a National Space Invaders tournament where thousands
09:25of people competed.
09:27The regional winners were awarded $150 each, plus an all expenses paid trip to the finals.
09:33First and second place were awarded prizes, and third place received a $500 check.
09:38In 1981, the World Asteroids Championships took place in Washington DC, with the winner
09:43receiving $5,000, and second and third place winning $3,500 and $2,500 respectively.
09:50In 1990, the Nintendo World Championships was a massive video game tournament.
09:55Also, the winners in each age bracket received a car, along with $10,000.
10:00If you are inclined to be a little less pedantic about what constitutes as paid, you can go
10:04far back as 1972, with the Intergalactic Space War Olympics, an event that many people consider
10:11to be the very first esports tournament.
10:13In 1984, there was a worldwide track and field arcade competition, where, according to Guinness
10:19World Records, over a million people participated, with the US winners receiving a Jeep and being
10:25flown to Japan for the World Finals.
10:28Large scale video game competition isn't a new thing.
10:31It's been happening for as long as video games have existed.
10:34But for the sake of argument, let's accept that none of these count, because they don't
10:38fit the modern definition of esports, which generally involves complex player v player
10:43combat where you can directly interact with the opponent.
10:46In my opinion, modern esports first developed with fighting games like Street Fighter 2.
10:51In 1991, Midway sponsored a tournament in California, flying the regional winners to
10:56San Diego for the finals, where the winner earned a Street Fighter 2 cabinet.
11:01In 1996, the Battle by the Bay was the first yearly tournament that would later become
11:06known as the Evolution Championship Series, or EVO, which now hosts the biggest fighting
11:12game tournament in the world.
11:13And of course, we can't forget about Quake's predecessor, Doom, which spawned the concept
11:18of Deathmatch.
11:19In 1995, the year before Quake was released, there was a tournament called Deathmatch 95,
11:25with the finals taking place at the Judgment Day event organized by Microsoft.
11:50The winner was Thresh, the same player who would go on to win Quake's first major
12:19tournament, Red Annihilation.
12:21Winning Deathmatch 95, Thresh received a new computer valued at around $10,000.
12:27These first esports tournaments didn't usually award cash prizes, because at the time it
12:32was hard to get sponsors who would fork over straight cash.
12:35Companies would rather offer up a prize, which is cheaper and has the secondary benefit of
12:40also advertising the product they wanted to promote.
12:43So I guess ultimately, the argument can be made that none of these count against Elon's
12:48claim, either because they aren't face-to-face games, or their tournaments only awarded prizes
12:53instead of cash.
12:54So when Elon states that he was in the first paid esports tournament, he might technically
12:59be correct from a very specific point of view.
13:02But personally, I don't think the distinction between a cash prize or any other type of
13:06prize is a helpful one in determining if Elon's second place achievement meant he was any
13:11good.
13:12Thresh, the eventual winner of Red Annihilation, didn't specifically win cash at Deathmatch
13:18in 1995, but that doesn't mean his victory was any less significant.
13:22And it was in part because of this first major win that Thresh would receive his first product
13:26endorsement in 1996, and is considered by many to be the first esports pro.
13:31So I will let you decide if Elon's decision to exclude all tournaments that didn't specifically
13:36award cash prizes and all tournaments that might not be considered esports by today's
13:41standards is relevant.
13:43Though we still don't even know if this tournament happened, or if Elon came second.
13:48And if you trust a lot of the comments online, you would be forgiven for assuming it didn't.
13:52Many people think the early history of Quake is completely documented, and because there
13:57is no concrete evidence of Musk's claim, he must be lying.
14:01But shockingly, I discovered this is simply not true.
14:04There was at least one Quake tournament with a significant cash prize that occurred before
14:10Red Annihilation, and the result of that tournament seems to have been lost to the sands of time.
14:16If Elon's story is true, I believe I've found the only tournament he could possibly be referring to.
14:22There is some credible evidence that Elon may actually be telling the truth.
14:28In June of 2017, a user posted to the Quake forum on ESR.com that they had listened to
14:34Elon's biography.
14:36In this biography, it mentioned that Elon's company, Zip2, had a team that came second
14:41in a tournament, and won several thousand dollars.
14:44This person wanted to know if it was true, or if it was just an exaggeration.
14:48Zip2 was a company that Elon co-founded in 1995, which was an online city guide that
14:54gave users information about local businesses.
14:57The biography in question was written by Ashley Vance, and was released in 2015.
15:03In it, Elon claims his team, comprised of his employees, competed in one of the first
15:08nationwide tournaments and won a few thousand dollars.
15:11Most of the forum post replies were unhelpful, or claimed that this was false.
15:16For example, this reply, which states that there were only two North American Deathmatch
15:20tournaments with over $1,000 prize money, and all of the finalists were well known.
15:25However, a full five years after the original post, an anonymous user posted this reply.
15:32Extremely late to the game here, but yes, Elon is 100% correct.
15:35We were the team that beat him and Zip2.
15:37We were Clan Olympus.
15:39Dumb name, yes.
15:40It was the first tournament held by Empath Implayer that eventually hosted the Red Annihilation
15:44single player game that awarded the Ferrari.
15:46I remember distinctly going to their webpage after playing against them in the final and
15:50seeing their about page with their executive profiles.
15:53All were unremarkable 20-something unkempt nerds, much like we were, and didn't think
15:57anything of it until Elon became a billionaire and his ties to his older companies became
16:01public knowledge.
16:02Let's be clear, an anonymous post on an obscure message board isn't good evidence,
16:08and when I read this, I quite frankly didn't put much stock in it.
16:11Still, there are some details that are important to note here.
16:15Mainly that the clan was called Olympus, the tournament was held by Emplayer, and it was
16:19before the Red Annihilation tournament.
16:22And this wouldn't be the only player from Olympus that would step forward.
16:26After a June 2023 interview where Elon once again brought up his Quake claims, a user
16:31posted the video to Reddit, asking if anyone had any information.
16:35The anonymous post from ESR.com was reposted, which was promptly shot down, with users
16:40saying this was false because all results are available historically.
16:45But then months later, an account with the name Olliesparta replied to the thread, claiming
16:50the story Elon told was true.
16:52Hey there, I heard about this Elon story the other day from my buddy.
16:56This story Elon told?
16:58It's true.
16:59How do I know?
17:00I was there.
17:02We were the team that beat a Zip2 team in this tournament you all are saying didn't
17:06happen.
17:07Sparta also claimed to being clan Olympus, and gave a detailed breakdown of the tournament
17:12final.
17:13This post seemed to back up the anonymous user from ESR.com, but there were some immediate
17:18red flags that made me doubt the veracity of this story.
17:22The story gave several details that couldn't possibly be correct if Elon was telling the
17:26truth, like saying the top prize was $1,000, which makes no sense if Elon's team received
17:33several thousand dollars for second place.
17:36They also thought the tournament may have been in 1998, which was a year after Red Annihilation.
17:41Sparta would continue to post replies, and his timeline of the tournament eventually
17:46returned to believable territory, clarifying that the tournament happened in 96 or 97,
17:52and that Red Annihilation happened afterwards.
17:55Sparta also claimed that if you can't find any information about the tournament, it's
17:59not because it didn't happen, it's just because any evidence was contained on the Mplayer
18:03website which has no archives from that time period.
18:07Which is true.
18:08The earliest Mplayer archives I can find are from 98 onwards.
18:12Sparta gave details that at the time seemed impossible to verify, for example specific
18:17details about this alleged tournament, for which I could find no results for.
18:22But he did make claims that I could verify, which would help to establish his credibility.
18:27He claimed that in the Red Annihilation tournament, he ended up in the top 32.
18:32And sure enough, when I checked the results for Red Annihilation, there was a player named
18:36Sparta who was eliminated in the round of 32.
18:39I also found another member of his team, Olly Hades, who also made the top 256.
18:45The fact that I could verify this part of Sparta's post made him much more credible,
18:49but it still wasn't enough for me to completely believe his story.
18:53However, if true, this post does narrow down the search for Elon's tournament.
18:58Both the anonymous user on ESR.com and Sparta claimed it was on Mplayer, so that's where
19:03my attention focused.
19:05Back in the early days of Quake, there were several platforms that casual gamers could
19:09use to play online.
19:11The two main ones being the Total Entertainment Network and Mplayer.
19:15These platforms allowed people to quickly and easily play Quake and other multiplayer
19:19games against other people over the internet, and they would charge players a monthly fee
19:24to use their service.
19:26Mplayer launched in late 1996, and as I mentioned a moment ago, we have no archived pages from
19:31that time.
19:32So any news about any tournaments from Mplayer itself has been completely lost.
19:37But as I said, at the time, there were many various websites that posted Quake news.
19:43and in an effort to grow their brand, they advertised in different ways, including full-page
19:48advertisements in gaming magazines.
19:51So I searched every Quake news site that I could find for any reference to Mplayer around
19:56this time, hoping that this tournament was advertised in some way.
20:00One particular website, BluesNews.com, is especially helpful because not only did it
20:05post Quake news around that time, but it still has its full archive available, going all
20:10the way back to 1996.
20:13And lo and behold, searching for references to Mplayer, I found a post from January 3rd
20:181997, which linked to an article on Next Generation announcing a Quake Clan Tourney with a $5,000
20:25cash prize.
20:26Thankfully, this article was archived, and it reads,
20:30Clans registered with Mplayer by January 2nd are eligible to participate in their Latter
20:35to Chthon Quake Tournament.
20:37The $5,000 prize is one of many prizes that will be awarded to participants of the tournament.
20:42What's funny about this article is that it was published January 3rd, a day after the
20:47registration cutoff.
20:49So it was essentially useless as anyone reading it was already too late to participate.
20:54This article shows there was a tournament with a significant prize pool before Red Annihilation.
20:59So it turns out Elon's tournament might be real.
21:03But the details still didn't seem to add up.
21:06Sparta said that his team won $1,000 for first place.
21:10But this article says there was a $5,000 cash prize.
21:13And I think what this article should have said is that there was a $5,000 prize pool,
21:18and not a $5,000 prize.
21:21In my search, I also managed to find a second reference to this tournament.
21:25In an archived Russian PC gaming magazine from July 97, it references this exact tournament.
21:31The article itself is describing various video game tournaments for different games.
21:36And when it came to Quake, it described two – Red Annihilation and Ladder to Chthon.
21:42And conveniently it listed the prize pool distribution, with first place winning $1,000.
21:48The NextGen article and this Russian gaming magazine are the only two external sources
21:53I could find that reference this tournament.
21:55In Google Groups, I also found an HTML dump of the Mplayer website from March of 97, which
22:01shows the final was on March 22nd.
22:04And I also found a blurb from January 97 saying that 30 clans would be competing for $5,000
22:10cash, which was a much more accurate description of the tournament prize pool.
22:15But unfortunately, I could find no other references or information about this tournament, including
22:21who actually won.
22:22Still, what this shows is that there was a paid tournament on Mplayer, and the prize
22:27for first place was exactly what Sparta said it would be – $1,000.
22:32The fact that this tournament was so hard to find, and Sparta's account was as accurate
22:37as it was, makes me think it's extremely unlikely that Sparta made up this story.
22:42It seems to me that this is exactly the tournament that Sparta was referring to, and is the tournament
22:47that Elon's team competed in and came second.
22:50Which also means Elon's claim of winning several thousand dollars is greatly exaggerated, and
22:55what his team actually won was $750.
22:59Elon's story appears to be based somewhat in reality – technically, he probably did
23:04come second in one of the earliest paid esports tournaments.
23:07But does that mean he was any good?
23:10Does that mean he was semi-professional?
23:12Does it mean he was one of the world's best players?
23:15No.
23:16No, it certainly does not.
23:20In 1996, early Quake players were quick to try and prove who was the best, and it wasn't
23:25long before organized tournaments were being held.
23:29Competition at that time was almost exclusively team-based.
23:32Teams would be represented by clans, and originally id Software hosted a full list of clans on
23:38their website, though it wouldn't be long before players formed their own network called
23:42Clan Ring, which connected all of the clans together.
23:46Clan Ring would begin hosting tournaments from late 96, and these tournaments were where
23:50the best players became known.
23:53These tournaments were not played through online paid services such as Ten or Mplayer.
23:57Instead, matches were played through servers that people would host at their own university
24:01or workplace – places which at the time generally had the best internet connections
24:06available.
24:07While these tournaments didn't award cash prizes, they were held in the highest regard.
24:13Prizes really didn't matter – all players cared about was the esteem that came with
24:17victory over the other clans, and the respect earned from other players.
24:22These tournaments, which were run and organized by players, are well documented.
24:26There are detailed statistics and full bracket results.
24:30We know who won, and which players performed well.
24:33Clan Ring players didn't play on platforms like Mplayer for multiple reasons.
24:37First, Mplayer required players to pay a monthly fee to use the service, which was an unnecessary
24:43cost when you could just use a Clan Ring server and play for free.
24:47Second, services like Mplayer did not provide the best multiplayer experience.
24:52While these services did allow casual players to easily matchmake with other players, they
24:56inserted an extra middleman, i.e. a third party client between the player and the server,
25:02which slowed things down and caused higher latencies.
25:05In fact, even those with ISDN connections were complaining of extremely high pings.
25:11I spoke with Thresh himself, and in our conversation, he confirmed to me that the best players didn't
25:16use platforms like Mplayer for this reason.
25:19And you were just always playing on these self-hosted servers?
25:24You generally didn't play through platforms like Ten or Mplayer?
25:27I mean, some people did.
25:28The best players didn't.
25:31There was no reason to.
25:32Why play through a service when you could just play directly, right?
25:35It was more for newbies and that type of people that made it a little bit easier to onboard
25:39and get a game going.
25:40So I think very few, if any, top players competed on those platforms, unless we had to, because
25:46there was some tournament going on.
25:48I actually did manage to find a tournament before Red Annihilation, which was called
25:52Ladder to C'Thun.
25:53First of all, does that ring any bells for you?
25:55Do you remember this tournament?
25:56No, it doesn't ring a bell.
25:58Yeah, because I found a Blues News, but by the time the article came out, you already
26:02had to be a registered user of Mplayer to even enter the tournament.
26:05So I assume that the top players just didn't know this tournament existed because it was
26:09just on Mplayer and there just wasn't really good advertising for it.
26:12It's quite likely because no good players played on Mplayer.
26:15And then with this Red Annihilation, did you just play on Mplayer for that tournament and
26:20then left the platform and didn't play on it again?
26:22Correct.
26:23I mean, playing through the Mplayer service was not the best experience.
26:27It's not the fastest.
26:28There's latency.
26:29You go direct from the game into a hosted server, will give you the best experience,
26:34obviously, as opposed to having a client and server layer by a proprietary platform
26:39that would then place you in a server or like a generalized server was never really that
26:44ideal.
26:45So, you know, I think that's why no good players played on that stuff.
26:49And finally, platforms like Mplayer did not differentiate players by their internet connection,
26:54which at the time was arguably the most impactful variable.
26:58Quake Deathmatch is optimized for local area network play.
27:01It was designed to run with very low latencies.
27:05When you introduce a high latency, like you would expect when you play online using a
27:0928k dial-up modem, which was by far the most common way people connected to the internet
27:14in 1996, Quake becomes very difficult to control.
27:18I won't get into the technical details of why this is, but the end result was that if
27:22you had a dial-up connection, it was almost impossible to compete with a player who had
27:27an ISDN or broadband connection.
27:30Having a fast internet connection was such an advantage that any half-decent player with
27:34a low ping could defeat even the very best players on dial-up, regardless of their skill.
27:39This is why Joe Rogan, who confessed to playing a ton of Quake in the 90s, admitted to spending
27:45an insane amount of money to have a T1 connection installed at his house.
27:49This is how deep I was into it.
27:51I lived in the mountains, like kind of high up in the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains,
27:55and I couldn't get good internet access, the best I could get with ISDN.
27:59I couldn't get cable, couldn't get cable modem out there, it was fucking terrible,
28:04the pings were awful to everywhere.
28:06So I had a T1 line installed at my house.
28:08You must have been rich.
28:09I was rich.
28:10Those were expensive.
28:11I went deep.
28:12Yeah, but it was worth it to me.
28:13It was a 1.44 megabit line.
28:15Yeah, it was worth it.
28:16Wait, those were like 10 grand a month.
28:19It was worth it.
28:20That's crazy.
28:23Did you really buy a T1 line back then?
28:25Yes, I had it installed at my house.
28:26How did you get that?
28:27How could you even afford that?
28:28Oh, you were just on TV stuff.
28:29I was on TV.
28:30Wow.
28:31Quake's network code essentially created an internet arms race amongst players, and this
28:36is why the Clan Ring tournaments had two separate brackets.
28:40One for dial-up, which was called HPB, which stood for High Ping Bastards, and one for
28:45ISDN and faster, which was called LPB, for Low Ping Bastards.
28:50In December of 96, John Carmack would release an unofficial Quake update called QuakeWorld,
28:56which redesigned the network code that made the game much more playable with higher latencies.
29:01QuakeWorld, it's basically my research project into extending the network play aspects of
29:08Quake.
29:09The first stage of it that we're in beta testing right now that we're about ready to release
29:13is a new network protocol that provides more latency tolerance for the client, so there's
29:18less lag and the network play is more robust in handling of problems along the connection.
29:24None of this is really relevant to Elon, however, as QuakeWorld wasn't supported on mPlayer
29:29until late 97, and these early mPlayer tournaments were all played on the original release of
29:35Quake.
29:36When it was announced that the qualifying stages of the Red Annihilation tournament
29:39were to be played via mPlayer, this made a lot of people upset.
29:44Due to the fact that mPlayer was not an ideal platform for competitive play, it didn't separate
29:49players based on their internet connection, and it didn't support QuakeWorld, most players
29:54simply had no chance of performing well.
29:57Players with broadband or cable connections had an insurmountable advantage.
30:01It's worth noting that despite the general dissatisfaction at the way the Red Annihilation
30:05tournament was run, when it came to who actually made the final top 16 that was flown to E3,
30:11every single player was an established Clan Ring competitor, which proved that Clan Ring
30:16did indeed house the best players on the planet.
30:19And when they did come over to mPlayer for this one particular tournament, they dominated.
30:23Of course, on the flip side, the situation was fantastic for Elon Musk and his prospects
30:28for winning the earlier tournament, Ladder to Chthon.
30:31Elon's company, Zip2, was a thriving internet company, which required the best internet
30:37connection available by necessity, a connection that he and his employees would use while
30:42at work to play Quake.
30:44Now Musk has his own computer command center, and his business is thriving.
30:49To his delight, Microsoft has tried, and so far failed, to get a hold in Zip2's market.
30:56In his Reddit post, Sparta said as much, stating that Zip2 performed so well against the other
31:01competitors because of their internet connection.
31:04But unfortunately for Elon, Team Olympus had the exact same weapon.
31:09So let's put Elon's tournament into perspective.
31:12mPlayer was a brand new paid online platform that the best Quake players didn't use.
31:18Zip2 did try to promote their event, but the promotion was so poor that by the time
31:22news of the tournament reached beyond mPlayer to places like NextGen and Blue's News,
31:27it was already past the registration deadline.
31:30None of the top players knew this tournament was being held before the registration cutoff,
31:35which is why you just don't find it mentioned anywhere.
31:38Even still, the fact the tournament was run on mPlayer at all meant that most players
31:43simply wouldn't have been able to compete anyway due to their dial-up connections.
31:48So in a nutshell, Elon played in an obscure tournament which has no footprint and was
31:52able to roll over most of the competition because of his superior internet.
31:56And when he reached an opponent with equal footing, he lost.
32:00Ironically, the part of the story that Elon feels necessary to repeat every single time,
32:05the part where he blames his loss on the fact that a team member's computer crashed, highlights
32:09how amateurish this tournament was.
32:39Can you imagine any reputable esports tournament that would allow the result of their grand
32:51final to be determined by a tech issue?
32:54Clearly, mPlayer did not take this tournament seriously, it was merely part of an advertising
32:59campaign to try and attract new players.
33:02To then go on to claim because of this second place victory that he was one of the best
33:06Quake players in the world is honestly pretty insulting.
33:10If you want to compare teams with some actual data, I found that Elon's Zip team had two
33:14players reach the top 256 in the Red Annihilation tournament, while the Legends clan had six
33:21players in the top 16 alone, with Ruthless Bastards, Extreme Prejudice, and Impulse9
33:27having two each in the top 16 as well.
33:29And these were well-established clans who had either won or placed very highly in the
33:34clan ring tournaments.
33:36These are clans with legitimate achievements that we can actually verify.
33:40The truth is that Elon was not very good at Quake, and while his team may have come second
33:45in a tournament, the circumstances surrounding that tournament make his victory completely
33:50empty.
33:51But don't just take my word for it.
33:53There is someone else who was around at the time, and who remembers playing directly against
33:57Elon Musk himself.
33:59In a 2020 podcast, Thresh, the very same player who won Red Annihilation, and who was by all
34:04metrics the best Quake player in the world at the time, said Elon wasn't very good.
34:34And after Elon started boasting about his Quake skills a bit more frequently and a bit
34:46more publicly, Thresh would again step in to set the record straight.
34:51In a 2024 Freethink article, speaking directly about Elon Musk, Thresh would state,
34:57Was he any good?
34:58He was okay.
34:59I know he claimed that he was one of the top players.
35:01He was definitely not one of the top players.
35:04So let's compare Elon's account with the actual truth.
35:08According to Elon, he was a semi-professional Quake player who was one of the best in the
35:12world at the time.
35:14He was on one of the best teams in the world, which came second in the first paid esports
35:19tournament ever, in which he won $3,000.
35:22The truth is that while Elon did play Quake often, he was not very good.
35:26In early 1997, he entered a Quake tournament that was only open to paid registered users
35:32of the brand new platform mPlayer, a platform that no top players used.
35:37Using his superior internet connection which gave him an unfair advantage, his team managed
35:41to come second, earning them $750.
35:45A question that arises is whether or not Elon's exaggerated claims are from poor memory, intentional
35:51deception, or straight delusion.
35:53And in my opinion, it's hard to pin this down to anything other than Elon just being a dishonest
35:58person in general.
35:59Elon straight up lies a lot.
36:02For example, in one of his Joe Rogan interviews, he claims that he played Quake during his
36:06final semester in college.
36:08Yeah, yeah, in my final semester in college, I probably put more time into Quake than all
36:12my college classes.
36:13However, it's well established that Elon Musk dropped out of his post-graduate degree
36:18in 95 to form his company Zip2.
36:21Well, that was the summer of 95.
36:23I had no money whatsoever.
36:25I was working doing research in Silicon Valley on a completely different subject and trying
36:32to start this company at the same time.
36:35And when it came time to decide do I want to do graduate studies or do I want to start
36:39this company, and I decided to start the company, I had no money.
36:42As a graduate student, I would have received a scholarship and a stipend and so forth.
36:47In starting the company, I had nothing.
36:50I had no income source.
36:51This was a year before Quake was even released.
36:54So it's impossible that Elon was playing Quake during his final semester.
36:58When Elon admitted that he wasn't the one leveling his Path of Exile 2 account, he attempted
37:03to gaslight everyone by saying that he never took credit for leveling the account, or ever
37:08intended to.
37:09But this is again provably untrue.
37:12On Twitter, he did exactly that, saying, and I quote,
37:16After so many deaths, I'm carefully building up a Path of Exile hardcore character.
37:21Aside from directly claiming that he was the one leveling his character, it's obvious
37:25to anyone with half a brain that streaming the character is implicitly taking credit
37:30for it.
37:31Unless you state otherwise, people are going to assume that the only person playing your
37:35character is you.
37:36Elon also claimed to be one of the best Diablo 4 players in the world, and his evidence for
37:42this was that he had a top-ranked time in an endgame dungeon called The Pit.
37:47So you, are you in the top 20 in the world?
37:49Yeah.
37:50Wow, in Diablo.
37:51Yeah, yeah.
37:52Truthfully, I don't wish to spend too much time debunking this, as on a fundamental level,
37:58using this particular metric to distinguish players' skill is nonsensical to begin with.
38:03One of the core tenets of esports and speedrunning is that every single competitor begins from
38:08the same position.
38:10In speedrunning, unless stated otherwise, you use a brand new save file, carrying over
38:15nothing from previous playthroughs.
38:18This ensures that comparisons to other players are fair.
38:21When it comes to comparing pit times in Diablo 4, this is not the case, as you enter the
38:26dungeon already fully equipped.
38:28In this example, the most important factor isn't your skill, it's your gear.
38:32It's the specific build you choose to use, which involves many factors that have nothing
38:37to do with skill.
38:38The point is illustrated perfectly by the huge discrepancy in clear times for different
38:43classes.
38:44For example, Elon's class, Spiritborne, could clear Tier 150 in a couple of minutes, while
38:48all of the other classes took well over ten minutes to clear a much lower tier.
38:53And the only reason Spiritborne could do so well is because players, including the player
38:58pretending to be Musk, were abusing unintended exploits to one-shot mobs, making the dungeon
39:04absolutely trivial to complete.
39:06I'm not saying there isn't some skill involved, but unless everyone is using the same class,
39:11the same build, and the exact same gear, it's impossible to accurately determine a
39:16player's skill level.
39:17And because Elon admitted to paying for someone else to play his account and give him the
39:21best gear, not only does he not deserve any credit for what his character can do, but
39:26it's probably not even him playing in his uploaded speedruns.
39:29He lied about everything else, the chance of him being honest in this instance is extremely
39:35slim.
39:36And because he has lied so much already, I would need better evidence than just a screen
39:40capture to prove it was him actually playing.
39:43It boggles my mind that a man with so much money and power is still so insecure that
39:48he feels the need to try and convince people that he's also God's gift to gaming.
39:53Not only is he deluded, but he's an insult to the actual professional gamers who devote
39:58their lives to this one endeavor.
40:00Elon might enjoy playing video games, which I think is pretty cool, but he certainly doesn't
40:05respect other gamers.
40:07Because if he did, he would stop downplaying their achievements by claiming that you don't
40:11need to work as hard as they do to be the world's best.
40:15Professional esports players practice 12 hours a day, and only a gifted few are able to rise
40:21to the very top.
40:22But if you're as amazing as Elon, you can run multiple companies, you can help audit
40:26the US government and hang out all day at the White House, and still be the best Diablo
40:314 player in the world.
40:33While also having the highest ranked hardcore character in Path of Exile 2, and have Lex
40:38Friedman call you a world class incredible video game player.
40:47But of course, only if you're as amazing as Elon.
40:50Ultimately, it doesn't matter if Elon is or isn't the greatest gamer of all time, like
40:56he wants you to believe.
40:57But his insistence on exaggerating or lying about everything has made me lose trust in
41:02everything else he says.
41:04If he lies so much in the one area that I know something about, how much is he lying
41:09and exaggerating in the fields that I'm not an expert in?
41:12When Elon says he's going to send humans to Mars, is this just another exaggeration?
41:17When he talks about all of the amazing things his companies can do for humanity, are these
41:22just exaggerations also?
41:24Personally, I don't know because I'm not an expert.
41:28And I'm not saying he definitely lies everywhere, but personally, I've heard him lie enough
41:33that I just cannot take the man seriously any longer, which I think is unfortunate.
41:38So now I'm left wondering, is Elon Musk a con man in every facet of his life, or is
41:43it just video games?
41:45Please let me know what you think in the comments.
41:48Thank you so much for watching you legends, I hope you're having a fantastic day, and
41:52I will see you in the next video.
41:55Thanks again to War Thunder for sponsoring today's video.
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