Elon Musk has been getting a lot of hate for his role in slowly destroying what once was Twitter. The X owner, also known for his fondness of video games, attended an eSports tournament for Valorant. Upon spotting the tech billionaire, the crowd started booing at him, all because of what he's done to the platform.
Musk Gets Booed by Thousands
The Tesla CEO attended the Valorant Champions 2023 Tournament in Los Angeles, California, not expecting around 11,000 people who express their dislike against him. His presence was made known when the camera pointed in his direction.
The commentator then announced Musk's attendance, which prompted resounding boos from the spectators. The match was live-streamed online and was watched by over a million people, meaning that all of them also witnessed the crowd's disapproval.
One of the commentators was surprised with the reaction from the viewers and asked where it was coming from. "That can't be from in here, surely. Is that a bigger reaction than TenZ got?" they added. In case you don't know, Tenz is a known professional Valorant player.
In the video posted by YouTuber Jake Lucky on X, the crowd can be heard shouting "Bring back Twitter" all while Musk was still being booed. As pointed out by USA Today, the reaction actually was longer than what Valorant player TenZ got before.
Elon Musk getting booed at VALORANT Champs and the crowd starts chanting "bring back Twitter" lmao pic.twitter.com/lDoWse78YV
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) August 26, 2023
The match that the X owner attended was between Evil Geniuses and Paper Rex, which the former-mentioned team won. Although the commentator tried to save the situation by saying that the crowd's focus was back on the game, they all continued to react negatively to Musk's attendance.
Why Was Musk Booed?
Evidently, the attendees were not too happy with how Twitter turned out after Musk rebranded it to X. Even before that, the X owner had already made some questionable decisions that caused a lot of users to leave the platform and opt for alternatives.
One of the changes that people still refuse to accept is X Blue, more known as Twitter Blue. The subscription service changed the platform's system of only providing checkmarks to known personalities to give them credibility.
Now, anyone with a few dollars to spare every month can have the coveted verification badge, which has diluted the value that the mark signified. Certain artists and celebrities even refuse to get verified, seeing as they did not have to pay before as legacy checkmark holders.
Moderation has also been rocky since Musk's takeover. Other than his "free speech" beliefs, he also conducted mass layoffs that greatly affected operations within the company, making it harder to flag content that violated the platform's rules.
People would argue that X is slowly sinking. A lot of the advertisers who left the social networking site have not yet returned and it looks like they aren't going to. Even under X CEO Linda Yaccarino, many believe that Musk is still pulling the strings and remain in control of the site.
