Elon Musk humbled by world's biggest chess website in public Twitter feud

Elon Musk is no stranger to a public argument, yet he often finds himself on the losing side in the eyes of the public, and his latest social media battle saw him humbled by the world's biggest chess website.

Like most of his disagreements, the argument began with an ostentatious proclamation from Elon Musk, as he claimed that "the actual number of moves that are not utterly stupid in chess is tiny and chess will be fully solved one day."

This suggestion came with the implicit belief that it would be AI – presumably a model pioneered by Musk himself – that would 'solve' the game, but one key account didn't exactly agree with his statement.

Quoting Musk's original post, Chess.com – the world's largest chess community – declared that believing this was a 'skill issue', perhaps suggesting that Musk would need an AI to win for him in order to play chess.

How did Musk respond to this mocking comment?

Musk surprisingly didn't react in the usual inflammatory way that you would expect, instead writing: "Chess is hard for humans, but not for computers. One day, it will be fully solved like checkers.

"Between now and then, or even after, have fun," Musk continued. "People enjoy many games/sports where machines are vastly better."

This line of argument mirrors one held by Bill Gates when it comes to the potential for AI to replace sports, as interest held by the public in sporting competition comes from the imperfection of human ability, with the notion of a perfect machine proving antithetical to our reasons for playing or watching.

The argument continued regardless of this though, with Chess.com hitting back in a new quoted post:

"There are more possible chess games, by about 40 orders of magnitude, than atoms in the observable universe," the website proclaimed, once again combatting the notion that a machine could 'complete the game. "To solve chess, you'd have to map them all. Good luck."

Musk clearly didn't agree with this idea, however, proclaiming: "Wrong, all legal chess positions are ~40 oom less than the estimated atoms in the Universe. And ASI will igure out ways to solve and compress that are far beyond what we could possibly comprehend."

He even hit out at the notion that he was here "arguing with some random intern at a chess website," but the person behind the Chess.com account hit back by noting that they're "a full time employee," adding that "even my friends don't text me back that fast" when Musk rapidly replied.

Who else has Musk argued with on social media?

It's probably easier to work out who Elon Musk hasn't had a spat with at this point, but he seems equally as willing to duke it out with randoms on the platform as he is with some of the most important people in his life.

Arguably his most notable social media battle was against U.S. President Donald Trump when their relationship rapidly fractured last year, as he made a number of wild accusations – including a claim that the 'truth will come out' about Trump's alleged place in the Epstein files – in a bid to make their relationship irrepairable.

He has also argued with several women that he has had children with, including famous musician Grimes after she begged him to get in touch with her, and Ashley St. Clair – the mother of his 'secret' 13th child – after she revealed the news to the world.

Musk also has battled with infamous hacking group Anonymous on a number of occasions as they continue to target the world's richest man, and has had run-ins with both Stephen King and late night comedy show SNL after they parodied him repeatedly.