Those characters can retire for now, but even if they die they retain that position on the ladder because they reached the cap.

Path of Exile 2 will follow a ladder reset design similar to Path of Exile or Diablo 2 or other ARPGs. When a new major patch comes out, there is a game reset, all characters and items are moved to “standard league”. Standard league is a snapshotted version of the game where you don’t have access to the new content. To play the new content, you have to make a new character and start from scratch. Characters on the new league are unable to interact with characters from standard league. This should happen every 3 months.

When Path of Exile 2 patch 0.2 comes out in hopefully February, the leaderboard will reset and people will have to make a new character to compete on the leaderboard.

https://pathofexile2.com/ladder/Hardcore

Elon’s boosted character is Random9#2886