Elon Musk claims he was once one of the best Quake players around, everyone laughs, but wait: The actual best Quake player ever says Musk 'wasn't very good, but he's still an OG'
21.11.2023 - 13:21
/ pcgamer.com
/ John Carmack
/ Elon Musk
/ Best
Billionaire and omnipresent main character Elon Musk has declared he was once one of the best Quake players in the world, to the tune of winning money for his skills. This obviously sounds like the kind of thing your mate would say after their third pint, but the revelation came during an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman during which Musk was expansive on his wider gaming habits, and particularly his Diablo 4 druid's inability to beat Lilith.
«Killing the demons in a videogame calms the demons in my mind,» begins Musk's digression on his «primary recreational activity». He adds «and yes, beating Hatred in the Eternal Realm is the hardest battle in life and in a videogame.» We'll return to Diablo 4 in a moment but this is where the flight of fancy really takes off, as Musk reminisces about his days playing Quake.
«I am 52 so my reflexes are not what they used to be but I have a lifetime of playing videogames,» says Musk. «At one point I was maybe one of the best Quake players in the world. I actually won money in what I think was one of the first paid esports tournaments in the US, we're doing four-person Quake tournaments and we came second.
»I was the second best person on the team, and the best person… we were actually winning, we would've come first but the best person on the team, his computer crashed halfway through the game so we came second. But I got money for it and everything. So basically I got skills. Albeit, you know, no spring chicken these days."
You would be forgiven for choosing the 'doubt' option at this point, and indeed the internet is not short of people mocking Musk for his claims of grandiose Quake skills. But while there's no doubt Musk is somewhat exaggerating here, it is undoubtedly true that he did play a lot of Quake, and with very good players. And some do remember him.
Below is a DJWheat interview with Dennis 'Thresh' Fong from three years ago. Fong is an esports pioneer and can fairly be described as the best Quake player of the '90s, most infamously winning John Carmack's Ferrari 328 at a 1997 tournament. This guy is as legitimate as it gets. And around 32 minutes in, Fong says Musk was there.
«Elon Musk, he's known as a huge gamer, we used to play on the same Quake server, almost every day I'd see him on: Zip2 was his username.»
DJWheat interjects to ask if Musk was any good. Fong laughs and says «he was OK. Uh… he wasn't very good, but he's still an OG, he's legit, when he says he's a gamer, I saw him every day on this Quake server and a good buddy of mine ended up being the CIO for every one of his companies.»
Fong more recently took to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, when this Musk clip surfaced, to re-state the above. «FWIW, I can confirm Elon Musk