Original title: 'Musk tops Diablo IV, everyone is wondering where he finds the time?'

Original authors: Sarah E. Needleman, Becky Peterson, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Image source: EMIL LENDOFWSJ, GETTY IMAGES, BLIZZARD

In the recently passed autumn, Musk launched Tesla's new self-driving taxi, launched dozens of rockets, and spent weeks campaigning for incoming President Trump. Not only that, he also achieved another feat, which some say is even more impressive.

The billionaire claims to be one of the world's top players of Diablo IV. Diablo IV is a popular video game set in a dark fantasy world where players can brew potions and slay demons. On November 20, Musk wrote on social media platform X: "You learn a lot about life by speeding through the game on the hardest difficulty." He then announced that he had just cleared the highest level of the game, 'The Pit', in under two minutes and included a video clip to commemorate the milestone.

Achieving such a feat requires more than just monster-slaying skills. Just reaching level 150 takes dozens of hours of gameplay. 'The Pit' was added to the game in May this year, with the latest season starting on October 7, resetting all players' progress to level 1. This means Musk reached the highest level in 45 days or even less.

Musk manages six companies, including brain-machine interface startup Neuralink, tunneling startup The Boring Company, and AI startup xAI. He is a prolific user on the social media platform X, which he acquired in 2022. As co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump administration, he is now helping oversee a comprehensive reform of the federal government.

He has taken on so many responsibilities that everyone wonders: how does he find the time to play games?

29-year-old Damir Sabic is a loyal player of the Diablo series, stating that he spent about 80 hours reaching level 129 of 'The Pit' in December. He said he stopped playing at that point because leveling up became tedious. He described Musk's claim of clearing level 150 in November as 'too crazy.'

'It means sitting in front of the computer playing games every day,' said Sabic, a 3D printing artist living in Houston.

Image source: BLIZZARD

In November, Musk claimed during an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast that he is one of the top 20 players of Diablo IV globally. He also said that he may have spent more time playing the shooting game Quake during his final year of college than attending all his classes.

Musk's marathon gaming sessions often seep into his business life. Walter Isaacson wrote in the biography he penned for Musk that before publicly announcing his acquisition of Twitter, Musk stayed up until 5 AM playing the role-playing game Elden Ring with his then-girlfriend, Grimes.

Last October, Musk shared a video of himself playing Diablo IV on the X platform, which captured audio of him simultaneously answering a phone call. During the call, he appeared to be discussing a test flight of the Starship rocket with employees of his space exploration company SpaceX.

Playing video games is not Musk's only hobby that consumes his time. According to The Wall Street Journal, by the end of July last year, Musk had posted about 13,000 posts on the X platform, averaging about 61 posts per day.

Recently, Musk spent over a week at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, attending meetings and interviews for cabinet position candidates, participating in calls between Trump and foreign leaders like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and recruiting friends and allies for key positions in the government.

Investors and analysts question whether Musk is capable of balancing the operations of all his companies.

This issue is particularly tricky now, as Tesla is preparing to appeal a Delaware judge's decision that overturned a 2018 compensation package granting Musk Tesla stock worth billions of dollars. One question in this controversy is whether this hefty compensation package is necessary to keep Musk focused on running Tesla, a publicly traded company currently valued at $1.3 trillion.

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in 2023, Musk stated that he tries to focus on just one company each day.

Other tech executives have also found ways to play games while managing large companies. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook's Meta, has long been obsessed with strategy games like Civilization. Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft's gaming division, plays various games on his phone during meetings.

Musk claims he completed level 150 of the 'Pit' dungeon in Diablo IV in under two minutes, indicating he is one of the top players of the game, at least according to an official leaderboard based on user-submitted data. Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Microsoft, released Diablo IV in June 2023 and has not published its own leaderboard for the game. On social media platforms like Reddit, some players expressed no doubt about Musk's ability to clear the highest level so quickly, especially since it could be farmed repeatedly. However, they wondered how he managed to achieve this in less than two months.

Some players speculate that Musk paid someone to help him 'farm' to the highest level. 'Farming' refers to having to complete a series of usually monotonous tasks to make progress in the game.

Others pointed out that Musk's rapid leveling in Diablo IV may be partly due to a glitch inadvertently introduced by Blizzard in October, which allowed players to gain more power than normal. Blizzard has stated that it plans to fix this glitch in the upcoming version update this year.

Original link