Should Elon Musk have his Path of Exile, Diablo accounts banned for cheating?

After Elon Musk publicly admitted to not leveling his characters himself both in Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2, their legitimacy has become questionable. In the wake of this, players are wondering if Musk’s accounts should be banned from these games and if he has broken their respective Terms of Service.

What did Elon Musk do in PoE 2?

Following the immense scrutiny he faced for his less-than-stellar PoE 2 gameplay, during which he controlled a level 97 hardcore character, Musk slowly started to cave under the pressure. First, he tried to legitimize his claims that he did, in fact, level his own characters so much, which would’ve taken him hundreds if not over a thousand hours to do, and we all know he likely doesn’t have the time to be playing a single game for nearly a month almost non-stop.

He exchanged more than a word with many in the community, went as far as to leak his DMs with the streamer Asmongold and claim he is “not his own man,” and fought tooth and nail to save his reputation among gaming circles. However, he couldn’t do it, and eventually admitted to paying others to level his accounts both in PoE 2 and Diablo 4, the latter of which he frequently streamed and showcased on X, his own private social media platform.

So, what now? Well, Musk said that he simply had to do this because players in Asia were too good to be beaten singlehandedly, requiring the combined forces of himself and whoever he was paying off to play instead of him. But does that hold up, and did his actions break PoE 2‘s and Diablo 4‘s terms of service? Here’s what they have to say.

What the TOS says

In its End User Licence Agreement revised in March of last year, Blizzard explicitly states some prohibited commercial uses of their platform and games. It says that “performing in-game services including, without limitation, account boosting or power-leveling, in exchange for payment” falls under their prohibited activities, which, if broken, allows Blizzard to suspend your Battle.net account or revoke your access to it altogether, and grants them the ability to ban you from a specific game and prevent you from playing it again.

In the case of PoE 2, the limitations are a bit more vague and not as explicit as is the case with Diablo 4. The game’s Terms of Use state that players must not “perform in-game services during your use of the Website, Materials or Services for any form of compensation outside of PoE,” thereby indicating that yes, any sort of third-party using your account to do anything for real-world money is, in fact, prohibited. However, as many in the PoE 2 community have pointed out, Grinding Gear Games has a track record of not enforcing these rules, with many players supposedly giving other players control of their accounts for the sake of leveling or boosting in exchange for real-world compensation.

So, is Elon Musk bannable?

To put it mildly: yes, yes he is. For Diablo 4, Blizzard has absolutely every right to revoke Musk’s access to the game or ban his entire Battle.net account since he has, in fact, given a third party access to his account for the sake of “account boosting or power-leveling,” thereby directly breaking the company’s Terms of Service. However, many believe that this will not happen because of Musk’s status, wealth, and how much perceived value he brings with his constant attention given to the title.

On the other hand, Grinding Gear Games’ title seems intentionally vague. Their Terms of Use do imply that such activities as we have discussed above are prohibited and bannable offenses, though it is unclear whether or not the company has a good track record of enforcing the said rules. Both PoE and PoE 2 are incredibly grindy games, and it’s highly likely the devs turn a blind eye towards account boosting and farming, but draw the line at automated services such as bots or bot farms. Therefore, I don’t think Musk will ever see the ban hammer descend upon him or his characters, at least not any time soon, because that would likely generate too much publicity and, likely, negative press, which devs generally do not want.