Elon Musk and a video game are fighting, because 2018 is officially the longest and weirdest year on record. The technology mogul and Fortnite, the technology every teenager is currently playing in beta, got into a tiff online that was as unsurprising as it was underwhelming.
It all started when a satirical website wrote a fake story that Musk had bought the game and deleted it. The fake quote attributed to Musk said “I had to save these kids from eternal virginity,” implying that only turbo nerds play the wildly popular game that’s popular across basically every gaming platform and also your phone.
Musk took a screenshot of that headline and quote and tweeted it out, going along the joke and saying that it “had to be done.” He also asked everyone to thank him for his generosity.
Had to been done ur welcome pic.twitter.com/7jT0f9lqIS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2018
Musk clearly is joking, as he has a habit of tweeting out jokes that get him into trouble. And that’s exactly what happens here! Fortnite was not happy about the joke, and actually tried to troll Musk about how long it’s taken him to build some space stuff.
A whole decade, @elonmusk? Just build, LOL!https://t.co/BkBlpzFI6v
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) October 20, 2018
The joke here, in case you’re not sure what a video game is trying to say, is that it shouldn’t take that long to build anything. In Fortnite, of course, you can instantly turn resources into shelter and, well, forts. It’s a clever joke that lots of turbo nerds thought was very funny, but Musk had a very simple, and accurate, response.
Reality is hard
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2018
Conceivably, Musk then did a weird dance to celebrate his accomplishment. The whole thing was kind of silly and no one looks particularly good, which is basically what happens when people fight over video games online. At least in this case it’s unlikely that Musk will be punished by the SEC for the interaction.