Why did Elon Musk 'rage quit' Path of Exile 2 stream and why do pile-ons happen?

Elon Musk 'rage quit' a gameplay stream on X / Twitter of Path of Exile 2 while testing a connection on his private jet after being heavily trolled.

The tech billionaire and Donald Trump's "first buddy" streamed live gameplay on his social media platform to test out his Starlink satellite system.

But the richest man in the world was mercilessly trolled, at first for being repeatedly defeated by the game's tutorial and first major boss called Bloated Miller, before users increasingly took their opportunity to attack him personally and politically.

So much so that he seemed to pretend connection was lost and 'rage quit' the stream altogether.

Why did it happen?

The straightforward answer is that a lot of people are angry at his actions as part of his heavy involvement in US politics, both how he has conducted himself (think back to the salute) and leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which is reportedly growing increasingly unpopular among American citizens at a rapid rate.

Many saw this as the perfect opportunity to make their passionate feelings heard but there were a lot of personal attacks in there too.

Comments on that front included "you ruined the country just like you ruined all your marriages", "you have no real friends and will die alone" and that Musk is "bald and ugly".

There were also repeated cases of users purporting to be Ashley St Clair who recently claimed to have given birth to Musk's most recent child, with users saying "I have no other means of contacting you so I bought PoE2 early access just for this, please pay your child support".

Musk also had a number of repeated death threats.

So why else do these pile ons happen and why can they get so personal?

Elon Musk recently 'rage quit' a stream because of the amount of attacks aimed at him / Win McNamee, Getty Images

Social media streams and dedicated streaming platforms have live chats where people can sign up with a username, email address and password to engage with content and comment with no threat of their real identities being detected.

On the majority of platforms, users have that anonymity of being able to make harmful comments without it being immediately known who exactly is behind them.

For people to gain clout in these environments, they feel they need to be part of the popular rhetoric. After all, social media and streaming platforms are where followers and likes are king, where users connect with seemingly like-minded individuals who share similar interests and views.

A lot of pile ons seem to happen to voice a popular opinion against someone's actions or views to seemingly fit in with a majority narrative. Or in the case of gaming, poking fun at someone that maybe isn't doing as well as they could be in the game.

Everyone then seems to try and one-up each other to land the most outrageous comment that will have people saying "did you see this user said that?"

That's where personal attacks can come in. Using Musk's case as an example, the comments were seemingly from some to land that coveted most controversial comment as it gets people reacting even more at the expense of someone there's already a common negative feeling towards. And people are seen to be 'fitting in'.

People can easily sign up for the majority of streaming and social media sites with a username, email and password without having to publicly share any personal information / nemke, iStock

Users crave that acceptance and looking like they fit in, even to the point where they're attacking someone without necessarily knowing everything about the situation.

This was found in research conducted at The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University that investigated the psychology of pile ons, specifically reputational rewards of publicly condemning others before knowing the whole story.

In the study's summary, researchers found: "There is no reputational reward for not looking [at the full story]: on balance, we are more likely to reward people who do seek countervailing views before they punish. However, the decision to punish is rewarded.

"When punishment is visible but looking is not - as is the case on many online platforms - many participants still engage in punishment without looking to reap the social rewards."

So it seems Musk's 'rage quit' stemmed from many making personal attacks on him to be seen to be doing the 'cool' thing and hating on him in this scenario.

To be clear, indy100 is not at all defending Musk's recent actions and what he's done since becoming so involved in US politics, people absolutely have the right to make their feelings known and voices heard - but personal attacks? Too far. Death threats? Way, way, way too far.

Elsewhere, Musk called a Trump advisor a 'moron' in the latest feud and Musk's own brother slammed Trump's tariffs as a 'permanent tax' on Americans.

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