Elon Musk challenges League of Legends pros to play AI

Entrepreneur Elon Musk has posted on X, issuing a challenge to professional League of Legends players to face off against his latest AI version.

Grok 5 is the latest version of Musk’s AI program, set to release in the first quarter of 2026. It is said to have 6 trillion
parameters and a 10% probability of achieving general artificial intelligence, making it one of the most advanced yet.

Let’s see if @Grok 5 can beat the best human team @LeagueOfLegends in 2026 with these important constraints:

1. Can only look at the monitor with a camera, seeing no more than what a person with 20/20 vision would see.

2. Reaction latency and click rate no faster than human.…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2025

The same AI, however, will also be capable of playing League of Legends to a degree that Musk believes would allow it to
compete with some of the top players in the world.

In the X post, Elon Musk stated he wishes to hold the challenge between willing pro players and Grok 5 sometime in 2026, while implementing some restrictions for the AI.

AI would only be able to see the monitor through a camera with 20/20 vision – mimicking what a normal person would see
when playing the game. Moreover, Grok 5’s reaction time and click rate would be no faster than those of a human.

In response to Musk’s challenge, many pro players showed willingness to participate, including the reigning world champions, T1.

While no official dates have been set yet, nor mentions of which players would participate in the challenge, more information about the first AI vs LoL pro players event is expected to become available closer to the official launch of Grok 5.

This intriguing contest, which would be the true Man vs Machine challenge, will not be the first time AI will feature in the world of esports.

In 2018, a Dota 2 tournament, The International 2018 OpenAI Showmatches, featured paiN Gaming, Big God, and the OpenAI Five team, the latter consisting of five AI players. In that instance, real-life players came out on top, with paiN and Big God both securing wins.

A year later, OpenAI Five defeated the OG Dota 2 roster, which won The International 2018 and 2019. The same AI then recorded a win rate of over 99% against human players in public matches.

Another AI, AlphaStar, developed by Google DeepMind, defeated pro StarCraft II players Grzegorz “MaNa” Komincz and Dario “TLO” Wünsch, both with 5-0. The AlphaStar AI would eventually reach the Grandmaster rank on StarCraft II’s ranked ladder too.

This is one of the first steps of introducing AI to the world of competitive gaming, would could find its place in the esports world as a training tool or find other uses to help players improve.