According to Walter Isaacson’s new biography, Elon Musk, the controversial entrepreneur was binging Elden Ring in Vancouver prior to his hostile Twitter bid on April 14. This monumental moment in internet history reportedly came days after he was offered a seat on the company’s board. An offer he rejected, of course.
Published Sept. 12, Elon Musk sees Isaacson fully explore the psyche of a man who continues to prove as divisive as ever nearly one year after his most high-profile purchase yet. Though a fascinating read itself, an excerpt that has got us curious pays mention to FromSoftware’s 2022 triumph.
The groundwork for Musk’s takeover was laid down months earlier. During this time, he had been scooping up shares of Twitter away from the public eye, although his intentions were undeniably clear.
“I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode,” Musk said to Isaacson, “which it has been in for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life.”
Eventually, the work of Musk was to be rewarded with an offer straight from the bird’s mouth. If desired, he would have directly joined Twitter’s board of directors. This seat delivered the power to have a say on all matters, although with the help of hindsight, it clearly wasn’t enough power for his liking.
Isaacson suggests that following that weekend, Musk had decided on his next move, an outright purchase of Twitter. It would only take a few more days before proceedings got underway. Interestingly, Musk did a lot of gaming around this time. Isaacson wrote that Musk stayed up “until past 5 a.m. playing a new war-and-empire-building game, Elden Ring.”
After the early-morning gaming session, Musk “pulled the trigger on his plan” and made an offer to buy Twitter.
Whether flying into combat against seemingly impossible foes was the final joust of inspiration needed or not is up for debate. A more playful thought is if Musk was having a good or bad time of things. Perhaps he’ll stream it for us sometime in the future so we can make a better judgment.
