Rockstar Boss Throws Shade At Elon Musk About GTA 6 Comments

CEO of parent company Take-Two Interactive grand theft auto 6 Developer Rockstar Games has responded to claims from Elon Musk and AI enthusiasts. GTA 6 There may be overlap. This gives CEO Strauss Zelnick a clear opportunity for Elon Musk as well.

For context, there was an interaction between Twitter fan page GTA 6 Countdown, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, and Elon Musk last January. that GTA 6 Musk compiled a statement on a fan page in which he claimed, “AI has the potential to allow anyone to create their own GTA 6 in minutes, before GTA 6.” At that time and at the time of writing, grand theft auto 6 Sweeney said “Text-to-GTA” is the next logical step in AI after “text-to-image and text-to-video,” and is expected to launch in November 2026. And Elon Musk said people wouldn't even need to give the AI a prompt, and that “the AI will figure out what video games you like best.”

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Take-Two Boss Says Elon Musk Can Be Replaced With AI, But Not GTA 6

Now, as first reported by GamesRadar, Zelnick directly commented on Musk about these claims about games like GTA 6 and generative AI during the Leadership in an Uncertain World panel at the Semafor World Economy 2026 summit in Washington DC earlier this month. In short, Zelnick suggests that Elon Musk is much more replaceable (approximately the 32 minute mark).

“[Musk] He has infinite financial resources, infinite human resources, and apparently infinite ideas. He also knows his way around AI. He also works 20 hours a day. If AI takes someone's job, wouldn't that person's job be taken away too?… Wouldn't that be the number one job that AI will take over, like the richest person on Earth? Why is he so busy? So why am I working harder than ever, even though I have fully embraced AI in every part of my life?”

Zelnick's comments should not surprise anyone. Because this isn't the first time he's commented on generative AI. GTA 6. In a previous interview with GamesIndustry.Biz, Zelnick stated that generative AI has “nothing to do with” the world Rockstar Games is building. “What do I think? [AI] The tools themselves make great entertainment products? No, there is no evidence that that is true and there never will be. Especially when it comes to GTA 6, Generative AI will have absolutely no impact on what Rockstar Games is building. Their world was created by hand. That's what sets them apart. They were built from scratch, building by building, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. It is not procedurally generated. It shouldn't be like that. That’s what makes great entertainment.”

It's worth noting as well. GTA 6 It's currently scheduled for release later this year, but as of late 2025, Elon Musk has claimed that xAI, his artificial intelligence company responsible for Grok, will release fully AI-generated video games and movies by the end of 2026. That was in October. Since then, there have been no gameplay, trailers, concrete details, confirmed studio outputs, or timeline updates beyond Musk's original promise.

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Rockstar Games tends to be a major release for the industry, and it remains that way, with the video game developer actively avoiding a November 2026 release date. When Zelnick says GTA 6 You can't make it with generative AI, and that means you can't make a game of that quality (nor can many other games of that quality). It's worth listening to.