Dec. 4: Why Musk Won't Buy Hasbro

Culture Wars Come for Dungeons and Dragons.

Last week, a few passing remarks from Elon Musk sparked a massive surge of interest in Dungeons and Dragons from the culture war parts of the online conservative movement. In the days since, their attacks on the property have consumed a significant part of Twitter/X (or at least my Twitter/X feed.) Has it also led to speculation about Musk buying Hasbro? Let me unpack it all for you.

As we previously covered, remarks made by game developer (and online troll) Mark Kern, quoting one of the few living game designers who worked with Gary Gygax to prove that the game did not have a history of promoting racism or sexism in its game design or past books. That caught Musk’s attention, who said Hasbro can “burn in hell” because they didn’t give Gygax the mention he deserves. (this is patently false, FTR).

This further escalated on Thursday when Musk made an offhand remark in a tweet. Conservative influencer Ian Miles Cheong posted screenshots of D&D senior designer Jason Tondro stating on Facebook that he acknowledged some of the game’s past and was critical of it. Cheong and others presented him as leading the project and misrepresented his words to allege that he hated the older gamers.

Musk responded, “How much is Hasbro?” This single reply sparked a series of posts and videos on YouTube, X, and TikTok claiming that Musk could buy Hasbro and, by extension, Dungeons and Dragons. The remarks were enough to cause Hasbro stock to surge in value, implying there was some belief in the concept’s future (that surge later diminished.)

The subject got additional scrutiny in the conservative world on Sunday when Babylon Bee Editor-in-Chief Kyle Mann posted about how he found new guidance within the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide about players using signals to inform the storyteller that they’ve crossed a line regarding content they find objectionable. This sort of signaling is a very normal practice among several TTRPG communities and is encouraged in most new material I’ve read.

Could Musk buy Hasbro?

 As someone who’s spent years covering Musk, I feel safe saying that passing remarks like this always happens. He’s joked about buying MSNBC after the company posted about several cuts and declining income. He’s a man who tends to post things on a whim with little thought, and many of them rarely go anywhere. He also still has multiple companies, and whatever role he intends to play within the incoming Trump Administration.

It’s also important to say that Musk is not financially stable. He’s dealing with a multitude of lawsuits, financial deals, and other troubles that somewhat restrict his wealth from being spent on such purchases. His value as a billionaire has dropped significantly over the last few years, and likely will do so as Twitter/X’s value drops and people’s view of his company shifts based on his relationship to President-elect Trump.

At the same time, there’s enough reporting to prove that Musk’s “random whims” can lead to action, given enough time or pressure. The decision to buy X was arguably sparked after Mann and the Bee were restricted for misgendering a transgender health official on Twitter; a decision that slowly escalated from shareholding to a finalized purchase in 2022. Musk has also grown increasingly aggressive in opposing things he finds “woke”, and D&D would not be a hard thing to fixate upon. There are a plethora of conservative/pro-OSR accounts still hanging out on Twitter who are actively hyping this up this decision.

It is my personal opinion that Musk is just shitposting as he usually does, and that supporters should not expect action soon. But if this topic becomes more prominent in conservative discourse, then perhaps we’ll see action. For now, expect a lot of noise and not much signal.

It’s PAX UNPLUGGED WEEK! While not as big as GenCon, expect to see some game previews, pics, and a lot more! I’ll be there all weekend covering it as best as I can.