Headlines · Summit PostThe actual number of moves that are not utterly stupid in chess is tiny and chess will be fully solved one day," Elon Musk tweeted on his own website, X, on Sep. 3. The bold prediction got the attention of Chess.com, or at least the person working the website's presence on X. "Skill issue," they replied in a clap-back quote-tweet later that same day.
Musk is defending his chess knowledge, while the Chess.com account is questioning it. What's unstated is that their feud actually goes back years. In December 2022, Musk shared an innocuous post about chess on Twitter (the website he had just bought and would later rename X).
He wrote, "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." Chess.com then published an article titled "Why Elon Musk Doesn’t — And Can’t — Play Chess." They questioned Musk's abilities by bringing up chess moves like castling, en passant, pawn promotion, and knight moves, including the knight's ability to jump over another piece and land on up to eight squares. Regarding the last one, Chess.com wrote, "How can one piece jump over another and then have the possibility of landing on up to eight squares? True, it’s not random and it’s probably confusing to someone who is a billionaire." Musk and the @chesscom account have since sent a flurry of snarky, passive-aggressive tweets back and forth.
Musk defended his chess knowledge, stating, "Chess is hard for humans, but not for computers. One day, it will be fully solved like checkers." The spat continued, with Musk calling the Chess.com admin an "intern" and the admin responding, "I'm a full-time employee." Others on X began to take notice, with one user writing, "Have been really enjoying this chess account wolloping on Elon Musk for the last 12 hours. Elon Musk continues to be one of the dumbest people around." Chess.com spokesperson Bianca Facey told USA TODAY, "We understand losing a chess game can be frustrating, but losing a Twitter fight to a so-called intern must be maddening." The feud reignited after Chess.com's tweet mentioning a 'skill issue,' a term from video games.
Musk responded, "Chess is hard for humans, but not for computers. Between now and then, or even after, have fun." Chess is quite popular in meme culture, and Chess.com is featured in many memes. In one meme shared in the /r/AnarchyChess subreddit in 2021, the creator jokes about getting 'en passant'd, referring to a move that involves one pawn taking another pawn in an unconventional manner.
The meme suggests the move was so confusingly good, they must have been hacked, prompting a search for how to report a hacker on Chess.com. In March 2025, Chess.com shared a viral tweet, receiving over 53.4 million views, asking users to rename the bishop, sparking a wave of replies suggesting the name 'bishop' itself.
Source: USA Today
