Elon Musk, the head of Twitter, Tesla, and SpaceX, says that the 2000 game is one of the best. However, according to one of the game’s writers, the situation is not so simple.

Musk’s taste in games reflects an impressive lack of self-awareness. Musk sees himself as an outsider and a heroic figure who challenges the status quo, despite being the richest man in the world, the owner of Twitter, and an occasional ally of Donald Trump. Musk only attacks the “establishment” when it threatens his vast wealth, his ability to spread hate speech, or his ability to spread conspiracy theories. During the pandemic, Musk drew parallels between basic measures to protect the vulnerable and the plot of Deus Ex, in which the richest man in the world starts an artificial pandemic to advance his political agenda.

Unsurprisingly, Austin Grossman, who co-wrote Deus Ex with Sheldon Pacotti and Chris Todd, is not a fan of Musk’s approach to the cyberpunk immersive simulator. Deus Ex (and Dishonored, also written by Grossman) is a game that examines powerful figures and the tools they use to control people. At the same time, it also examines the ethics of transhumanism, an industry in which Musk invests heavily.

“That kind of political weight and social satire is a common thread between Deus Ex and Dishonored. Elon Musk likes it, creepily. It’s creepily present in his worldview. So that may be its longest and worst legacy. It’s bizarre that Elon Musk wouldn’t recognize his place in the Deus Ex universe because he’s not JC Denton. I gave an interview to The Independent in which I probably went overboard in my rant about Elon Musk. Honestly, I hope Elon Musk never Googles me because then I’ll be murdered.”

Musk clearly imagines himself to be the JC Denton of the world—an honest, everyday guy who stands up to the elite. As is obvious to everyone, Musk is the one with power, and he is simply pathologically incapable of honest self-reflection. “I would say that Musk is like the villain in Deus Ex, except the franchise doesn’t have a villain as whiny or full of selfish delusions as he is,” Grossman said.

Musk recognizes the villains of Deus Ex — the problem is that he genuinely believes he’s the opposite of them rather than a more annoying, less talented real-life version of the AI-obsessed billionaire antagonist, Bob Page. Criticizing Musk is risky; he happily attacks his critics with sarcasm and pettiness, which is particularly strange for a man in his 50s who runs several large companies.

Source: PCGamer, The Independent