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Elon Musk criticized and posted his private messages with a popular gaming streamer after the streamer called him out for allegedly faking his gaming prowess.

For a while now, Musk — despite surely being incredibly busy running the multitude of companies he owns — has touted his various gaming achievements on social media. In fact, when he boasted about being one of the top players in the world in the online role-playing game “Diablo IV,” reports at the time indicated it was actually true.

Within the last few days, however, Musk’s credibility within the gaming community has taken a serious hit. On Jan. 7, Musk streamed himself playing “Path of Exile 2,” another role-playing game. The account he used, according to reporting from Futurism, ranked among the top players in the game’s “hardcore” mode. Most notable about the game mode is the fact that it includes a permanent death function that will delete a character as soon as they’re killed in the game. Musk’s character was a level 97, suggesting at least some level of mastery of the game.

That stream led to confusion within the “Path of Exile” community. One Reddit user even compiled an extensive list of instances in which Musk had little or no knowledge of game functions that a hardcore player would surely be familiar with. That led to the theory that Musk simply paid actual players to boost his account so that he could look like top-ranked player himself.

When the well-known streamer Asmongold entered the scene and shared a video regarding the ongoing saga, Musk decided to unfollow him and took away his blue checkmark on X, previously referred to as Twitter.

In reaction to Asmongold's videos addressing the ongoing controversy, Musk tweeted that he is "not his own man." He then, rather confusingly, shared a screenshot of a benign chat between the two regarding the editors of Asmongold's YouTube channel.

“In the tweet, Musk stated, ‘Asmon presents himself as a free-spirited ‘independent.’ However, the truth is that he must seek approval from his superior before taking any action. He isn’t truly autonomous.’”

As highlighted in the community note, Asmongold has been transparent about the contributions of his editors in the creation of his content. Furthermore, it's a widespread practice among streamers and YouTubers to employ editors to ensure a steady flow of content production.