Elon Musk has a reputation for disrupting industries. When you’re one of the richest people in the world, all it takes is a few words to get people to notice a company. That’s what recently happened when Musk mentioned tabletop role playing game Dungeons & Dragons and its parent company, Hasbro.
Elon Musk Defends Gary Gygax
Wizards of the Coast released The Making of Original D&D: 1970 – 1977 as part of the 50th Anniversary celebration of the game this year. The book looks into the original design documents, letters and an early version of the game. These documents are carefully reproduced to give fans a look at how the game went from a collection of handwritten notes and typewritten pages to the experience loved by millions today.
The opening foreward of the book points out that some of the content might be objectionable to some modern audiences. Upon the original release of the book, this section triggered heavy debate on social media. Some readers appreciated the disclosure while others felt the introduction disrespected Gary Gygax, the person cited as the main creative force behind Dungeons & Dragons.
The book was offered on a heavy discount as an early Amazon Black Friday deal. A fresh infusion of readers caused the discussion to catch fire once again on social media. Except this time, Musk decided to weigh in with his opinion.
The most recent edition has taken steps to move away from some of the opinions and design choices made by Gygax in his version of the game. The 2024 Players Handbook moved away from “races” into “species” and detached character statistics from that aspect of characters and moved it to their backgrounds. Wizards claimed the new version of the core book is the fastest selling D&D book in the history of the game.
Elon Musk Wonders About Hasbro’s Asking Price
The discussion continued to simmer over the past week. It mostly focused on whether Gygax was a figure to be revered, someone to be put into the dustbin of history or as a person with a complicated legacy that every fans must decide on their own how to handle. Then, on Wednesday, November 27th, Musk replied to a post in a way that caused the industry to wonder if he was turning his disruptive ways toward Hasbro.
Hasbro reported $4.32b in revenue last year. It has $3.99b in reported debt. Shares traded as high as $73.46 and as low as $45.87.
Will Elon Musk Buy Hasbro?
Hasbro seems like a much cheaper purchase than X for Musk, formerly known as Twitter, which he bught for a reported $44b. The toy company has struggled in recent years due to a sluggish toy and collectible market. Wizards of the Coast has proven to be abright spot for the company thanks to the resurgent D&D and they wildly popular and profitable Magic: The Gathering.
Musk has a lot on his plate running multiple companies like X, Neuralink,Tesla and SpaceX. He’s also been a very active part of President-elect Trump’s transition team and tapped to oversee the Department of Government Efficiency with Vivek Ramaswamy. Hasbro might be too small for his attention or it could become a hobby unto itself for the entrepeneur.
The one thing that’s reliable about Elon Musk is his unpredictability. Time will tell if this was a momentary social media distraction or if he decides to get into the tabletop industry. Wherever he goes, disruption follows in his wake.
