Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick Fires Back at Elon Musk Over GTA 6 AI Claims

There's something almost poetic about the CEO of the company behind the most anticipated game in history using that game as a way to call out the world's richest man. But that's exactly what happened.

Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, responded publicly to claims from Elon Musk that AI will be able to generate games like GTA 6 within minutes. His response, delivered at the Semafor World Economy 2026 summit in Washington, D.C., was blunt. And pointed. And, honestly, pretty funny.

What Musk Actually Said

Back in January, a GTA 6 fan Twitter account surfaced a statement from Musk claiming: "There's a chance AI will let anyone generate their own GTA 6 in a few minutes, before GTA 6." Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney weighed in too, saying "text-to-GTA" was the natural next step after text-to-image and text-to-video. Musk then doubled down, suggesting AI wouldn't even need a prompt because it would "figure what video game you'd like best."

Bold claims. Especially from someone who, by his own admission, couldn't get past the opening scene of GTA 5 because he didn't want to shoot police officers.

Zelnick's Response

Speaking at the Leadership in an Uncertain World panel on April 16, Zelnick addressed those claims directly. The full exchange is worth watching from the 32-minute mark, but the gist of it:

"He has unlimited financial resources, and he has unlimited human resources, and he has, apparently, an unlimited number of ideas. He also knows his way around AI. He also works 20 hours a day. If AI were to take anyone's job, wouldn't it take his job? The richest guy on Earth, wouldn't that be job number one for AI to take? Why is he so busy? By the way, why am I working harder than ever despite the fact that I've totally accepted AI into every part of my life?"

Then, in what might be the best aside of the whole conversation, Zelnick mused that if anyone were a simulation, Musk "would be my number one choice."

Not exactly a diplomatic response. But it's a fair point.

Rockstar Doesn't Use Generative AI. Full Stop.

This isn't the first time Zelnick has addressed this. In a prior interview with GamesIndustry.Biz, he was equally direct: "Generative AI has zero part in what Rockstar Games is building. Their worlds are handcrafted. That's what differentiates them. They're built from the ground up, building by building, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood."

He's also previously called the idea of AI generating a game at GTA 6's scale "laughable."

And look, when you consider what Rockstar is actually building, that position makes sense. The level of detail going into GTA 6 is staggering. Procedural glass systems. Hand-built neighbourhoods. Years of interdisciplinary development across hundreds of developers. The idea that a text prompt replaces any of that isn't a bold prediction; it's just wishful thinking dressed up as futurism.

That said, Take-Two isn't anti-AI across the board. Zelnick noted the company has hundreds of pilots and implementations already running internally, focused on helping developers move through repetitive tasks faster. The distinction he draws is between AI as a supporting tool and AI as a replacement for creative decision-making. One of those is real. The other isn't, at least not yet.

Meanwhile, Where's Musk's AI Game?

Worth noting: back in October 2025, Musk announced that xAI, his artificial intelligence company behind Grok, would release a fully AI-generated video game and movie by the end of 2026. That deadline is approaching fast. Since that announcement, there has been no gameplay footage, no trailer, no studio announcement, no timeline update beyond the original promise.

Nothing.

So on one side, you have Rockstar Games, a studio that's had developers avoiding November 2026 release dates just to stay out of its way, quietly building what looks like one of the most detailed open worlds ever made. On the other, you have a billionaire who said AI would replace that whole process and has yet to produce a single frame of the game he promised.

Zelnick's point about Musk still working 20-hour days despite all his access to AI cuts deeper than it might seem. If the technology were anywhere close to what's being claimed, the guy who owns the AI company wouldn't still be grinding that hard. The gap between what AI boosters promise and what actually ships remains enormous. GTA 6, for all the long development cycles and delays and industry chaos surrounding it, is shipping. November 19, 2026. On PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Build by building. Street by street.