CARY – In the annals of “fake news,” a tweet from Elon Musk over the weekend may go down as one of the most read.
The billionaire CEO or Tesla and SpaceX took to Twitter to take on globally popular Fortnite from Cary-based Epic Games, acknowledging in his tweet just how popular – and often addictive – the online game has come.
“Elon Musk buys Fortnite and deletes it,” reads the Musk tweet.
“I had to save the kids from eternal virginity,” he wrote.
Elon Musks Fortnite tweet
Epic’s Fortnite crew wasted little time to respond with a jab of its own.
“A whole decade, @elonmusk?” reads the Fortnite tweet response, referring to Musk’s comment about needing a decade to build a base on Mars.
“Just build, LOL!”
ComicBook.com, offered a translation:
“For those that don’t know: the “Just Build, LOL” is a reference to the many, let’s say ‘hardcore,’ Fortnite players who can be found across the Internet instructing players who are complaining or losing to ‘Just Build, LOL.’ This saying, which was a prominent meme in the early days of the game, implies that said player just needs to learn how to build in the game, and that they are, basically, a noob.”
The tweets ignited a storm, triggering “hundreds of thousands of people” who discussed the tweets, Forbes reports.
Some fans got in some good comments of their own, such as:
“All the engineers from @EpicGames who built @FortniteGame will now be shipped to Mars on a @SpaceX rocket.”
Written in jest from all appearances, the Musk tweet isn’t likely to get him in trouble with the SEC like his tweet about taking Tesla private did.
As for buying Fortnite, could he?
Not likely, given the hundreds of millions of dollars Fortnite is generating for Epic and its big part-owner Tencent. Bloomberg now values Epic at $8 billion.
“So, could Elon Musk buy Fortnite and delete it? Well, his net worth keeps fluctuating due to Tesla’s stock price, but by last count Musk is worth about $19.7 billion. And while Epic is a private company, the success of Fortnite has estimates making it worth about $8 billion, at least a few months ago,” Forbes reports.
“So yeah, if Elon Musk liquidated about half his fortune, he might actually be able to buy Epic Games and then promptly flush that money down the toilet by shuttering its most popular product.”
Musk soon returned to more mundane business matters later.
“Just released lower cost, mid-range Tesla Model 3 & super simple new order page,” he tweeted.
One wonders how many Epic engineers drive to work each day in Cary in Teslas?
