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.
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.