Billionaire Elon Musk was booed by the crowd when his attendance on the final day of the Valorant Champions 2023 tournament was highlighted in the broadcast.
In a clip of the stream shared by Jake Lucky, Musk's attendance in the stadium was revealed, only to be met with raucous boos from the crowd. "Where's that coming from, that can't be from in here, surely," one of the stream's broadcasters asked. "Is that a bigger reaction than [professional Valorant player] tenZ got?" The other replied.
The feed cut back to a match between Canada-based Evil Geniuses and the Singaporean team Paper Rex, but the crowd wasn't finished with Musk. "Focus [is] back on the game now," one of the broadcasters erroneously declared before the crowd broke into a chant of "Bring back Twitter."
If I had billions of dollars, I would probably throw my fortune at a massive development effort to make a quadruple-A CRPG in the Dark Sun setting, and I would also have Thanksgiving dinner for every meal until I got the gout. Given the same opportunity, Musk engaged in a media feud with the corporate ownership of formerly-essential social media giant, Twitter. Musk made and then backed out of an offer to buy the company for $44 billion, only to be forced to see the deal through after facing legal pressure from a Delaware court.
Since then, the billionaire has capped a host of poorly-received staff, monetization, and moderation changes by renaming the site to "Xhamster.com," sorry, I mean "X.com." In May, The Guardian reported that the company has lost two thirds of its value under Musk's leadership.
Props to the Valorant Champions 2023 crowd then, sometimes it can be nice to see someone at an imperial remove from everyday life have to deal with the consequences of their own actions. Also, congrats to Evil Geniuses on being the first North American team to win a Valorant Champions tournament.
