Deus Ex's influence on Elon Musk 'may be its longest, worst legacy,' says its writer
Elon Musk thinks Deus Ex is "one of the best games ever". It's not exactly a hot take. But his taste in games also displays an impressive lack of self-awareness. Musk sees himself as an outsider and heroic figure taking on the status quo, despite being the world's richest man, the owner of X, and a sometimes-ally of Donald Trump.
When Musk rails against 'the establishment', it's only when it threatens his vast fortune, his ability to indulge in hate speech, or when he's promoting conspiracies. Indeed, he posted multiple tweets during the Covid-19 lockdowns where he drew connections between essential measures to protect the vulnerable and the plot of Deux Ex, where a man-made pandemic is deployed by the world's richest man to advance a political power play.
Unsurprisingly, Austin Grossman, who wrote Deus Ex alongside Sheldon Pacotti and Chris Todd, is not a fan of Musk's take on the classic cyberpunk immersive sim.
Deus Ex—and Dishonored, which Grossman also wrote—is a game very much interested in the powerful, and the tools they use to control people. It's also an exploration of the ethics of transhumanism—an industry that Musk himself is extremely invested in.
"That kind of political weight and social satire is a real common thread between Deus Ex and Dishonored," Grossman tells us. "It is the thing that Elon Musk likes, creepily. It is creepily in Elon Musk's worldview. So that may be its longest, worst legacy."
Like most of us, Musk easily recognises who the villains of Deus Ex are—the problem is that he genuinely seems to believe that he is opposed to them, rather than being a more annoying, less capable, real-life version of AI-obsessed billionaire antagonist Bob Page.
"It's bizarre that Elon Musk would not recognise where he actually sits in the Deus Ex universe," says Grossman, "because it is not in the JC Denton role."
Criticising Musk always comes with some risk. Alongside a baffling Sardaukar of vocal fanboys on X, "The Everything App", Musk himself will happily target his detractors with a level of glee and pettiness that is particularly strange when it comes from a man in his 50s who is in charge of several high-profile companies—something Grossman is prepared to weather should his online harassment ticket get punched.
"I did an interview with The Independent in which I probably went a little over the top in my rant about Elon Musk," Grossman says. "Honestly, I hope Elon Musk never Googles me, because I'll then be murdered."
In said interview, Grossman told the site that "Musk plainly imagines he's the JC Denton of this world—a plainspoken everyman, standing up to the elite. As is obvious to everyone, Musk is the one with power and he's just pathologically incapable of honest introspection."
And even more scathing: "I would say Musk is like a Deus Ex villain, except that the franchise doesn't have any villains as whiny and self-servingly delusional as he's shown himself to be."
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