Elon Musk had just finished playing a video game with Grimes when he made his offer to buy Twitter in April 2022. He and the musician, with whom he has three children, had stayed up until 5 a.m. playing Elden Ring, a new war and empire-building video game that was released a couple months prior. Right after they wrapped up, he pulled the trigger on his hostile bid to buy the social media company, tweeting at 7:23 a.m., “I made an offer,” with a link to a SEC filing disclosing the proposal.
Understanding Musk’s obsessions with video games is a key to understanding his “intensity, focus, competitiveness, die-hard attitudes, and love of strategy,” according to Walter Isaacson’s biography, Elon Musk, which was released on Tuesday. And it’s no wonder: The billionaire lives his life as though he’s constantly playing a video game. From making seemingly brash business decisions, like the Twitter deal, to how he designs self-driving cars and rocket ships with little regard for safety, Musk constantly takes on huge risks with little concern for the consequences.
