Did Elon Musk create a computer game when he was 12? SpaceX owner recalls his love for space-themed video games

On Monday, January 20, Elon Musk retweeted a @WorldHallOfFun tweet, which talked about the CEO creating a Space-themed game - called Blastar - at the age of 12. Per the tweet, Musk later sold the game to a computer magazine for $500.

Musk captioned his retweet: "Guess I’ve liked space, computer programming & video games for a long time"

According to a Yahoo! Finance article published on September 27, 2023, Elon Musk created the video game when he was 12, and sold it a year later to an industry trade magazine, PC and Office Technology.

Per the outlet, in the 1983 game, players possessed five lives. Elon programmed a bare basic fixed shooter using Pascal and Turbo C++. The game involved a spaceship, navigating through dangerous space, and shooting alien freighters. The source code of Blastar was published in the magazine in 1984.

---

A tech reporter brought Elon Musk's Blastar back into limelight in 2015

After Elon Musk was paid $500 for his game, it was left behind in the 90s, until Ashlee Vance - a technology reporter at Bloomberg - discovered it.

In 2015, Vance mentioned Musk's Blastar in her non-fiction book, titled Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. The Goodreads description of the book calls Musk:

"an amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. More than any other entrepreneur today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy."

The 2015 revelation of Elon Musk's Blastar caught the attention of a Google software engineer, Tomas Lloret. Lloret then revived Musk's code, turning Blastar into a playable game that anyone with internet access could play.

---

Musk's gaming skills were recently defended by his ex-girlfriend

As Musk had mentioned in his recent tweet, the entrepreneur has always been an avid gamer. However, according to an NME article published on Monday, January 20, his gaming abilities have been questioned in recent years. It started in 2022 when his Elden Ring set-up was mocked for being terrible.

Earlier in January 2025, Musk struggled with the basic features of Path Of Exile 2 - an action role-playing game - during a Twitch stream. Path Of Exile also happens to be a game in which Musk claims to be behind one of the highest-ranked characters.

Among the games that have accused the 53-year-old of cheating is the YouTuber Asmongold, who claims Musk of either buying the account or having somebody play the game for him.

Another accusation Asmongold has placed on Musk is that he cheated in Diablo 4. It is a game in which Elon Musk was named the number one player in November 2024, after he cleared a level 150 pit in under two minutes. The Tesla CEO also tweeted the video of his play later.

Amidst the speculations of cheating, Grimes - originally named Claire Elise Boucher - took a stand for Elon Musk's gaming skills. On Sunday, January 20, Grimes tweeted:

"Just for my personal pride, I would like to state that the father of my children was the first american druid in diablo to clear abattoir of zir and ended that season as best in the USA. He was also ranking in Polytopia, and beat Felix himself at the game. I did observe these things with my own eyes. There are other witnesses who can verify this. That is all."

The tweet, which had since gone viral, receiving over 4.3 million views, 28K likes, and 3K retweets, was also retweeted by Musk, who captioned it: "Thanks"

---

Grimes - who is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer - dated Elon Musk between 2018 and 2021. The couple also share two songs and a daughter.