TBD Bonus: The Discourse | Why is Elon Musk Cheating at Video Games?

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate

News, Daily News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Elon Musk is supposed to be running several companies and a new government department—so why is he also spending money to pretend to be good at video games? Guest: Drew Harwell, tech reporter for the Washington Post. This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive episodes of What Next TBD—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello Slate Plus listeners. It is Lizzie O'Leary. Welcome to the discourse from What Next TBD.
0:12.5	Every episode, I sit down with smart people to talk about one big thing in the online conversation.
0:19.6	This is available exclusively to Slate Plus members, you lucky people.
0:24.1	So to those of you in this very special club, which is all of you, if you're listening,
0:28.1	thank you. This week, I am joined by one of my favorite tech reporters in the world. Drew Harwell,
0:34.6	tech reporter at the Washington Post. Hello.
0:38.7	Hey, Lithy.
0:39.6	How are you?
0:41.0	I'm great.
0:41.6	How are you?
0:42.2	Good.
0:42.7	Good.
0:46.0	I mean, I sort of have no voice, but hey, it's fun.
0:47.0	I sound like Kathleen Turner.
0:48.7	All right.
0:58.5	This week, perhaps not surprisingly, has been dominated by one guy, Elon Musk, and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Doge.
1:12.3	They have been moving through D.C. at a very rapid pace with Musk talking about how he's working on the weekends to get things done, sleeping in the office, pushing for an extremely hardcore environment, much like he did at Twitter.
1:18.2	But we are going to talk about a different aspect of Elon Musk. Honestly, one of my favorite stories that you have ever written. Somehow, in Elon Musk's free time, he has managed to get
1:24.6	to the top of the leaderboards of two video games, Diablo 4 and Path of Exile
1:29.3	2, while also working at Doge and the various other companies he's in charge of. This is no small
1:36.6	feat. It takes a lot of hours of grinding to get to the top. Drew, how did Elon do it?
1:44.4	Well, basically basically he cheated.
	...

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