For more than a decade, @BoredElonMusk has been one of the most recognizable personalities on the internet. What began as a parody account evolved into something much bigger: a platform for sharp cultural commentary, creative experimentation, and ultimately, entrepreneurship in web3. With deep roots in gaming and a long-standing passion for exploring emerging technologies, Bored Elon has built a unique identity as both a digital persona and a real-world advisor and builder.

Today, Bored Elon spends his time advising founders across gaming, NFTs, and crypto, while exploring the possibilities of AI and the next generation of internet culture. We sat down with him to talk about how the character has evolved, why virtual ownership matters, and where he thinks the next wave of web3 innovation will emerge.

‍Note: This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

OpenSea: You’ve been Bored Elon for over a decade. How would you describe the character now versus when you started? And do you see it as a character or just an extension of yourself online?

Bored Elon: It’s really no longer a character. It’s just a variation of the real guy running it.

It started off as full-on parody. I even had the word “parody” in my bio. It was pretty much Elon Musk but an extreme version. Then he kind of became the parody of himself.

I think anyone who's done comedy writing or other forms of creative writing gets tired of writing the same thing. I just didn’t want to be a character anymore. I wanted to be me.

So, although I grew my account by playing the role of Bored Elon, now I just have that username—and it’s basically the nerdy dude behind the screen who happens to benefit from the fact that the guy he chose to parody now owns Twitter. I didn’t see that coming.

It’s really an enhanced version of me—a less risk-averse version. So I live in this parallel identity: there’s the real guy and then there’s Bored Elon, who lives online, primarily in web3 and on the internet.

Bored Elon has been dramatically more successful. I did pretty well in my career, but eventually, Bored became more successful and got more opportunities. So I leaned more heavily into that identity.

OpenSea: That’s so interesting. Do you think the anonymity of this character, the version of you it’s become, enhances your creativity? Or did it ever make you feel boxed in?

Bored Elon: I think at first, creativity always looks for a constraint. The constraint of playing a character was really helpful. But eventually I didn’t need it anymore.

I often refer to it as anonymity with a reputation—you still have a reputation to lose, and I think that’s a really powerful driver for creativity. It removes a bit of that fear of looking stupid. A lot of people don’t want to experiment because they’re afraid to fail publicly.

I don’t have that fear as much in real life either, but the added layer of anonymity helps. I try a lot of stuff. Most of it fails. Some of it doesn’t.

So I do think having an alternate identity is a powerful way for people to be more creative and explore things they normally wouldn’t because of stigma.

OpenSea: Yeah, absolutely. You touched on this earlier, but how do you continue to generate ideas in a world that often feels like satire itself?

Bored Elon: I’ve moved away from satire and more into just reacting to what’s happening. That’s what everyone does on Twitter now. You're just putting your own spin on things.

It’s like memes. You respond to what’s happening in real time and try to be funnier than everyone else. Twitter is a game we’re all playing at the same time.

But my creative output has moved away from writing. I’m more into experimentation now—building things. Games, web3 projects, investments. It's action over words now.

OpenSea: I want to dive into your company, Bored Corp, but to set the scene, I’d love to know what originally brought you into web3 and crypto in the first place.

Bored Elon: Going back to the origin of Bored—I started dabbling with Bitcoin very early, around 2013 or 2014. Primarily as a means of transacting and sending funds across the world easily. Then I basically didn’t touch it again until 2021, when NFTs really started rising, which is when Bored came into existence too.

What clicked for me was this: I used to work professionally in the video game industry. I saw how much money, time, and passion people put into digital things. Pair that with the reality that Bored Elon is a digital identity—he can’t own stuff in the physical world, but he can own things on the internet. And what does that look like? That looks like a token.

So this whole idea of a virtual identity owning virtual objects made sense. That’s what got me to jump headfirst into web3, exploring the boundaries of that concept. And I think the rest of the world is catching up. Younger generations raised on Roblox, Minecraft, and most video games already understand this innately—spending money on virtual things is completely normal to them.

OpenSea: When you're advising projects now, where does your interest lie? Is it about solving problems for founders? The technology side?

Bored Elon: Definitely the technology side, especially novel technologies. There are three main categories I’m really excited about.

First: the intersection of AI and gaming. I worked in the industry for a long time and saw how expensive and time-consuming it is to bring games to life. So I’m really excited about how AI can speed that up. You’re hearing this term "vibe coding" now. I’ve dabbled in that by creating games myself, and I want to work with companies that are bringing the game development timeline from three years down to six months, or even less.

Second: mining. Back in the early days of crypto, proof-of-work mining was how most tokens were created. I think that's going to make a big comeback. It’s great at preventing Sybil attacks. I think it’s the next meta, especially for projects that want to be decentralized and robust.

Third: NFTs as memberships. I still think this is a massive use case. It got big, then cooled off, but it’s going to come back. Every company with a loyalty program, every club, should have an NFT pass. I really believe that’s going to be a huge resurgence over the next five years.

OpenSea: We spend a lot of time at OpenSea thinking about future use cases, and that was one of the big draws for me early on, too. So, outside of memberships, what are some other use cases you see gaining traction?

Bored Elon: I think art has stuck around and will continue to grow. It's simple. It resonates. You look at something, you like it, you want to own it. That simplicity works.

The other big one for me is gaming. We haven’t had a ton of great examples yet, but I’m a firm believer. Most video games are already selling NFTs—players just can’t trade them. You’re buying skins in Fortnite or items in League of Legends, but they’re locked in. The next step is giving players ownership and liquidity. I think it’s inevitable. People just misjudged the timeline.

OpenSea: Totally. I always think about how Vitalik launched Ethereum after losing everything in World of Warcraft. That story really stuck with me. Even if it wasn’t exactly direct, gaming was one of the earliest inspirations. 

Bored Elon: Yeah. Definitely. Speaking of gaming: Grand Theft Auto 6, one of the biggest games in the world, just got delayed until next May. I’m not saying this means they’re adding some kind of game economy, but… it would be very interesting if they used the extra time to build in more economic layers. That game will be the closest thing we’ve seen to a metaverse.

OpenSea: So cool! We touched earlier on AI and gaming, but stepping back: big picture, how are you feeling about the ways AI is becoming embedded into everything right now—especially in crypto and web3?

Bored Elon: I’m extremely hopeful. What I’ve felt with the rise of AI is that it gives people so much more agency to bring ideas to life—ideas they previously couldn’t afford or didn’t have the skillset to create.

There’s that cliché going around on Twitter, "you can just go do stuff now,” but it’s true. There’s a lot you can just do.

For years, I studied game design, but the best I could do was build tabletop games. I couldn’t code. But now? I can go build video games with the knowledge in my head, using AI to fill in the gaps.

Even on the personal side, after we lost our house to the fires, I used AI to help navigate insurance claims, legal stuff, mortgage communications. I didn’t have to hire a lawyer for everything. It’s empowering. And I think we’ll see society split into two camps: those who adopt AI as a superpower, and those who don’t. It’ll be like the internet all over again, only faster and more extreme. Or… we all get overtaken by machines. Who knows.

OpenSea: I think about that all the time. Thinking about the regulatory environment, how are you feeling about the changes we’re seeing? Do you think they’ll open up more opportunities for innovation in the U.S.?

Bored Elon: Yeah, I think everything moves in pendulum swings. It feels like we went from very restrictive — almost draconian — to a much more permissive environment now.

That’s good and bad. I think we’ll see some bad actors take advantage of it. My hope is that over the next year or two, the pendulum swings toward the middle — clear, reasonable regulations that let people build confidently and understand what's okay and what's not.

That clarity will attract more builders back to the U.S., rather than pushing them to go overseas out of necessity.

The other side of that, beyond regulation, is how the market is shifting to empower creators. We’ve seen this in recent news about Apple and how they’re charging developers for in-app purchases. If more of that value flows back to creators, it gives people better profit margins — and more margin to reinvest in their products. So from both a legal and market standpoint, I think it’s a really good time to be a builder.

OpenSea: Yeah, definitely. Can you tell me more about the project you contributed to on Abstract called Bigpool?

Bored Elon: Absolutely. I've become a passionate user of Abstract Chain, and believe it has one of the best shots at breaking through with consumers due to its extreme ease of use and focus on streaming content. One of the most popular applications and tokens on Abstract right now is Bigcoin, which is essentially a digital analogy to Bitcoin mining. 

Instead of people using actual computers and electricity to mine using a true proof of work system, Bigcoin allows users to create farmville style virtual mining rooms that they pay for using the Bigcoin token. A few friends and I were so enamored with this concept that we ended up creating a mining pool specifically to do just that, but with size and with vibes. 

Bigpool is an 833 NFT collection that minted for .05 eth on Abstract, and our floor currently stands around .30 eth. Unlike membership NFTs in the past that largely have focused on collecting and allowlists, Bigpool has a very specific use-case, which is giving people fractional access to the largest Bigcoin mining operation. And since the core contributors do most of the work related to mining...everyone gets to just chill and hang out in the pool (our Discord). Here's our site with some of the nerdy details: https://bigpool.tech/ 

OpenSea: Love that! Thank you for sharing it with us.

Bored Elon: I really appreciate it.