Percy_Verence, Elon Musk’s infamous hardcore character from Path of Exile 2, died at level 97.
Late last week we reported how Path of Exile 2 players were questioning Elon Musk’s claims that he has one of the highest-ranking hardcore PoE 2 characters on the planet, thanks to a live stream showing his seeming confusion over a game mechanic that was would be elementary for any high level player. It is with a heavy heart that I report that at approximately 8am EST on Friday, January 10, 2025, this character – Percy_Verence – died at level 97.
In Path of Exile 2, hardcore characters only live until their first death, after which they are loaded into the standard character pool. If these characters rank high enough on the global hardcore ladder (a leaderboard that tracks the overall experience gained by the top 1,000 hardcore characters), their death is announced to all players in the game. The moment of Percy_Verence’s death was captured in a screenshot by Reddit user JRoyales. At the time of his death, the level 97 Summoner was ranked 7th.
In a fun coincidence, JRoyale also captured the automatic chat subtitles the game provides for characters’ battle barks. In this case, in the last moments of Percy_Verence’s life, the warrior JRoyale shouted “Weakling!” and “Meet your maker!” Happy accidents.
Musk first announced the existence of Percy_Verence on January 5 through his alternate X account, @cyb3rgam3r420, named for the funny amount of weed it contains. At that time, the character was already level 87, which was enough to take a place in the PoE 2 hardcore ladder. Considering the difficulty of moving a hardcore character to higher levels unscathed, this was a real achievement.
However, after Musk broadcast an hour and a half of gameplay with the character on January 7, PoE 2 players were convinced that the achievement belonged to someone else. During the stream, Musk appeared to be unfamiliar with basic components of how the game works, as he repeatedly attempted to enter inaccessible map nodes, neglected to collect valuable items, failed to notice an empty mana bar for extended periods of time, and demonstrated a basic lack of understanding of PoE 2 detail. calling it a set of flawless low-level equipment.
As an illustration of how fierce the competition is for a spot at the top level of the hardcore ladder, in the three days since Percy_Verence’s death, the character’s XP had already dropped from Rank 7 to Rank 13, while other high-level PoE 2 players are aiming for this. superior to each other. To experienced PoE players, the gameplay Musk showed during his stream seemed orders of magnitude insufficient to meet the requirements of hard ladder placement, leading many to believe that Musk was taking credit for a character that someone else had leveled up.
You could also be forgiven for thinking that the stash tab called “Elon’s Map” looked like a red flag.
It is not surprising that the death of Percy Verence was greeted with a chorus of ridicule and widespread dancing on the graves. “Clearly it was the level 52 gloves that were holding him back,” one Reddit user said, citing Musk’s assessment that his gear—including his unique, build-defining, slot-best gloves—“could have been better.”
“I was probably triggered by the laughter and even tried to play the character for 5 minutes,” said Tateybred, another Reddit user. “F. He might just buy another one.”