(Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images))
As Elon Musk helps shape the Trump administration and US policy, he’s also turning his sights to a new venture: Developing video games.
On Wednesday, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted about creating a game studio through his startup xAI, which is also developing the Grok chatbot and other tools to compete against OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
“Too many game studios...are owned by massive corporations. xAI is going to start an AI game studio to make games great again!” wrote Musk, an avid gamer who regularly plays Diablo IV.
But it looks like Musk’s game studio will also reflect his politics. Musk's post came in response to a tweet from Dogecoin’s co-creator, Billy Markus, who is critical of today’s video games.
“I don't understand how game developers and game journalism got so ideologically captured,” Markus posted, later adding: “Gamers have always rejected dumb manipulative BS and can tell when someone is an outsider poser.”
Musk today also took a shot at Microsoft’s Xbox team over allegations the company has been taking its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts too far. “Can they just make good games and skip the woke lecture?? Wtf” Musk tweeted on Wednesday.
Days earlier, Musk also posted on X/Twitter that “Having pronouns in a fantasy video game is utterly unacceptable,” citing a screenshot from the upcoming Xbox title Avowed, which will apparently let the player select their character’s gender.
Hence, Musk's game studio might operate in the same way he’s used X/Twitter to push his politics and views in the US culture wars. However, developing a major video game is no easy feat; a large game studio typically takes years and hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a AAA title. Generative AI may streamline the game development process; earlier this month, Netflix announced its own push to use generative AI to build games.