Elon Musk booed at video games contest as crowds shout: ‘Bring back Twitter!’

Elon Musk, the owner of X – formerly known as Twitter – was booed at a video game contest in Los Angeles.

The audience at Valorant World Championship Final on Saturday did not seem to like Mr Musk’s takeover of the social media platform, which he then renamed. As soon as the cameras showed him, he was met with a cacophony of boos.

Mr Musk was attending the tournament with one of his sons, Insider reported.

A clip of the event has ironically garnered over 14m views on Mr Musk’s social media platform.

“Where is that from? That can’t be from in here, surely,” one of the commentators said amid the booing after the camera aired a brief shot of the Tesla and SpaceX founder.

Even after the camera returned to focus on the game play, the crowd continued to boo. Then people started chanting in unison: “Bring back Twitter!”

People on X weighed in on what it means to elicit such a reaction at a video game tournament.

One X user wrote: “Getting booed by Valorant players is like getting wedgies by the anime club in middle school.”

Another user remarked, “Lol we want a new logo,” seemingly blasting the black “X” that replaced the blue bird as the platform’s logo.

Yet another said that the boos weren’t that bad: “That was actually a very sweet chant compared to all the other things they could of chanted.”

The X owner has faced consistent criticism over the changes he has made to the popular and influential social media platform since his takeover last year.

On top of unhappiness over the policy changes, Mr Musk was also blasted over his decision to rebrand the site from the household name Twitter to a simple X. Last month, a giant “X” sign appeared above the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, sparking an investigation; the sign has since been taken down.

This wasn’t the first harsh rebuke Mr Musk faced last week; the Justice Department sued his company, SpaceX, accusing it of hiring discrimination.