Elon Musk Reignites Years-Long Feud With Chess.com After Bold Claim, Calls Admin An ‘Intern’ In Online Spat

Elon Musk and Chess.com have reignited a public feud that dates back years, trading a series of pointed messages on X this week after the billionaire made a sweeping claim about the future of the game.

“The actual number of moves that are not utterly stupid in chess is tiny and chess will be fully solved one day,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Sept. 3.

The prediction quickly drew a response from whoever manages Chess.com’s official X account.

“Skill issue,” the account replied in a quote-tweet later that same day, using a term commonly deployed in online gaming culture to question someone’s competence.

What followed was a rapid exchange of snarky, passive-aggressive posts between Musk and the Chess.com account, with Musk defending his understanding of the game while Chess.com repeatedly questioned it. The exchange, while new in its specifics, extends a rivalry between Musk and the popular chess platform that stretches back nearly four years.

The origins of the feud trace to December 2022, shortly after Musk had purchased Twitter and before he renamed it X. Musk posted about his own history with chess at the time, dismissing the game’s complexity relative to real-world scenarios.

“I did as a child, but found it to be too simple to be useful in real life: a mere 8 by 8 grid, no fog of war, no technology tree, no random map or spawn position, only 2 players, both sides exact same pieces, etc.,” Musk wrote in that earlier post.

Chess.com responded at the time not just with a tweet, but with a full blog post titled “Why Elon Musk Doesn’t — And Can’t — Play Chess.” The post pushed back directly on Musk’s characterization of the game as simplistic, highlighting several nuanced rules that it argued undercut his argument, including castling, en passant, pawn promotion and the unconventional movement pattern of the knight piece.

Addressing the knight specifically, Chess.com’s blog post took a notably sharp tone.

“How can one piece jump over another and then have the possibility of landing on up to eight squares?” the post read. “True, it’s not random and it’s probably confusing to someone who is a billionaire.”

Chess.com also replied directly to Musk’s original 2022 tweet, though that earlier exchange did not prompt any public response from Musk at the time, leaving the rivalry largely dormant until this week’s renewed exchange.

Following Chess.com’s “skill issue” jab this week, Musk offered a more detailed defense of his position on the game’s ultimate solvability, drawing a comparison to another classic board game that has already been fully mathematically resolved.

“Chess is hard for humans, but not for computers,” Musk wrote. “One day, it will be fully solved like checkers. Between now and then, or even after, have fun. People enjoy many games/sports where machines are vastly better.”

The back-and-forth continued from there, growing increasingly personal at points. Musk at one stage referred to whoever runs the Chess.com account as an “intern,” prompting a swift correction from the account.

“I’m a full-time employee,” the Chess.com account replied.

The Chess.com admin also poked fun at how quickly Musk was responding throughout the exchange, suggesting the billionaire’s rapid replies stood out compared with his own social circle.

“Even my friends don’t text me back that fast,” the account wrote.

The public spat drew significant attention from other users on X, many of whom sided with Chess.com in the exchange. One user, posting under the handle @CantEverDie, offered a pointed take on the dynamic playing out in real time.

“Have been really enjoying this chess account wolloping on Elon Musk for the last 12 hours,” the user wrote. “Elon Musk continues to be one of the dumbest people around.”

Chess.com spokesperson Bianca Facey offered a similarly sharp assessment of the exchange in comments to USA Today.

“We understand losing a chess game can be frustrating, but losing a Twitter fight to a so-called intern must be maddening,” Facey said.

X had not responded to a request for comment on Musk’s behalf regarding the exchange as of publication.

Chess.com’s willingness to engage playfully, and at times combatively, with high-profile figures and internet culture more broadly is not new for the platform. The company has built a substantial following for its social media presence over the years, frequently leaning into meme culture surrounding the game. Jokes referencing Chess.com and specific chess rules have circulated widely across platforms including Reddit, where one popular post shared in the r/AnarchyChess subreddit in 2021 joked about a player getting “en passant’d” by an opponent, humorously suggesting the confusing but legal move was so unexpected that the victim assumed they had been hacked and searched for how to report the incident to Chess.com.

The platform has also generated viral moments independent of its rivalry with Musk. In March 2025, Chess.com shared a tweet asking users to suggest a new name for the bishop chess piece, a post that drew more than 53.4 million views and prompted a flood of replies, many of which simply suggested renaming it “bishop.” The account’s admin responded to the wave of unhelpful suggestions with characteristic humor.

“Please stop suggesting ‘bishop’ … silly name,” the Chess.com account wrote at the time.

Musk’s history of public disputes with individuals and organizations on X, the platform he owns, has become a recurring feature of his online presence in recent years, spanning everything from business rivals to media figures to, now, a chess website’s social media team. Whether this latest round of sparring with Chess.com produces any further escalation, or fades as quickly as it began, remains to be seen, though the exchange has already generated significant engagement and amusement among users following the back-and-forth in real time on X this week.