Elon Musk, who once wielded a great deal of influence and popularity, seems to have fallen out of favor among his fans, as indicated by his less-than-warm welcome at the 2023 Valorant Champions tournament.
The esports competition, centered around Riot Games’ free-to-play tactical hero shooter Valorant, has been ongoing for the better part of this month, taking place in Los Angeles, California. On August 26, the climax of the tournament that showcased a showdown between Evil Geniuses from the United States and Paper Rex from Singapore in the final match.
Broadcasting to an audience of nearly four million viewers, the camera feed momentarily switched to Elon Musk, who was amongst the crowd, accompanied by one of his sons. In a brief sequence lasting no more than five seconds, the atmosphere transformed into a chorus of boos and disapproving jeers aimed at the Tesla founder. These expressions of discontent seamlessly melded into a collective chant hollering, “Bring back Twitter.
Elon Musk getting booed at VALORANT Champs and the crowd starts chanting "bring back Twitter" lmao pic.twitter.com/lDoWse78YV
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) August 26, 2023
The reaction left the commentators stunned as one of them asked, “Where is that from? That can’t be from in here, surely,” while the other retorted “Is that a bigger reaction than TenZ got?”, comparing it to the reception the skilled Canadian Valorant Pro player Tyson Ngo from the Sentinels team received, though in his case, it was more of a warm welcome.
It comes as no surprise that Musk isn’t well-liked by Valorant fans. The business magnate acquired Twitter last year, and since then, he’s managed to morph what used to be a blossoming social media platform into a mere shadow of its former self.
The once-vibrant space is now flooded with hate speech and right-wing content. His choices have hardly ever courted agreement, and his decision to rebrand the platform to X has undoubtedly stirred up a fair share of controversy.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time the billionaire has been booed by a crowd. Last year, Musk was invited on stage by comedian Dave Chappelle for his show at the Chase Center in San Francisco. Much like the Valorant incident, the audience unified in a chorus of boos aimed at Musk. Despite Chappelle’s best efforts to bring order and pacify the crowd, every time Musk took hold of the microphone, the chorus of boos resurged.
Perhaps if Musk allocated a fraction of the time he dedicates to inciting cage fights with Mark Zuckerberg to listening to the voices of Twitter users, he might not find himself subject to such reactions from crowds.
Nonetheless, the Valorant Champions Tour concluded with a triumph for Evil Geniuses, securing a 3-1 victory that helped them secure the title of the first North American team to clinch the coveted championship.
