Elon Musk Booed at Video Game Competition in LA

pcmag.com:

Elon Musk's recent acquisition and rebranding of Twitter to "X" has faced its fair share of backlash. But while many users of the social media platform have been vocal in their criticism of the Twitter owner online, he hasn't faced too much derision in public. That all changed last weekend at the Valorant World Championship Final.

Musk attended the gaming event with his son X Æ A-12 and was briefly shown on camera. The shot of him was met with boos, with one of the commentators saying "Where is that from? That can't be from in here, surely."

Despite only being shown for a few seconds, boos quickly filled the room, with people in the crowd chanting "Bring back Twitter!" Jake Lucky captured the moment and posted the short video clip on his Twitter account.

This public display of dissatisfaction comes at a time when Twitter is looking to boost revenue by attracting advertisers as well as paid subscriptions. In May, The New York Times reported that X's ad revenue was down on average 59% in a one-year period. (Musk still has estimated net worth of $235 million, Bloomberg says.)

But Musk himself has fixated on seemingly small details at the company, from logo changes to removing must-have features like blocking. All that tinkering means less time to pay laid-off employees, it seems. Forbes reports that 2,200 arbitration claims have been lodged by former employees over unpaid severances.

Musk appears to be preparing for the worst, recently admitting the platform may fail. "The sad truth is that there are no great 'social networks' right now," he tweeted this month. "We may fail, as so many have predicted, but we will try our best to make there be at least one."

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