Elon Musk's claim about the 'top 20' of Diablo IV is as true as his self-driving cars.
It's competent, but not that great.
Elon Musk is quite busy at the moment. He is at the helm of several companies such as X, SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink, in addition to being involved in an active campaign in support of Trump. However, despite these multiple responsibilities, Musk still finds time to play Diablo 4. In a recent interview with Joe Rogan, he stated that he feels confident in his skills, even pointing out that he ranks 20th among the best players of Diablo 4, a feat that he claims only two Americans have achieved.
In Diablo 4, "The Pit" is a timed dungeon where players have 15 minutes to defeat monsters and the final boss, with each death reducing the total available time. Completing "The Pit" allows players to obtain end-game materials to upgrade their gear, and since it is an advanced-level dungeon, the fights are quite challenging. Therefore, successfully finishing it as quickly as possible could be a good indicator of one’s skills in the game. There are rankings that classify players by their completion times in "The Pit," which supports Musk’s claim. Currently, according to verification on helltides.com, Musk is in 20th place.
However, it's important to note that there are no official leaderboards for "The Pit." Helltides.com is not affiliated with Activision Blizzard, and the rankings are based on game recordings submitted by the players themselves. The list consists of 881 submissions. Despite this, managing to complete "The Pit" in 2 minutes and 45 seconds is not an easy task, indicating that Musk has a good understanding of the game (or at least knows how to look for the best strategies on sites like IcyVeins.com). However, it is hard to accept that he ranks among the top 20 players in Diablo 4 globally based on a list with only 881 participants, especially considering that Steam shows a figure of 11,000 concurrent players.
In an interview, Fayz, co-owner of helltides.com, stated that Musk’s self-identification as a "top 20" player of Diablo 4 is valid, as it is the best global list available. Nevertheless, Fayz acknowledges the limitations of this leaderboard, as it is as comprehensive as possible based on the recorded gameplay. However, unrecorded and unshared runs go unnoticed.
Musk is not the only millionaire who has made exaggerated and unverifiable claims about his skills in video games. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg boasted in a TikTok video that he is "close to grandmaster status" in Civilization, claiming it would be a surprise if someone could beat him. In 2017, a report revealed that Travis Kalanick, former CEO of Uber, had claimed to have the second-highest score in the world in the Nintendo Wii tennis game, which later turned out to be false. Musk could have legitimately presented his exceptional skills in Diablo 4 without exaggerating; however, his ego led him to make unfounded statements.