Elon Musk showed a combination of humility and hubris as he opened his highly anticipated hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live.”
The Tesla CEO, SpaceX founder and one of the world’s richest men opened his monologue by mocking his monotonal speaking style, saying no one can tell when he’s joking.
“It’s great to be hosting ‘Saturday Night Live’ and I really mean it,” said Musk standing on the stage in a black suit with a black T-shirt. “Sometimes after I say something, I have to say that I mean it.”
He added, in explanation, that he is the first person with Asperger syndrome to host the show. “Or at least the first person to admit it,” he said.
Musk also joked about his Twitter account, which has more than 50 million followers, and the tweets that led some critics to object to his being invited to host the show.
“Look I know I sometimes say or post strange things, but that’s just how my brain works,” he said.
Then added a boast that got his biggest laugh of the night, and an applause break.
“To anyone who’s been offended, I just want to say I reinvented electric cars, and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship,” Musk said. “Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?”
Musk didn’t appear in the show’s unconventional and warm cold open, in which cast members and their moms did brief bits for Mother’s Day as musical guest Miley Cyrus sang her godmother Dolly Parton’s inspirational “Light of a Clear Blue Morning.”
But Musk brought his own mother, model Maye Musk, on stage to talk about what he was like when he was 12.
The casting choice brought criticism from those who felt the show was celebrating a man for his exorbitant wealth in a time of great inequality and a man who spread misinformation to his huge Twitter following as he downplayed the severity of the coronavirus crisis.
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