Saturday Night Live (SNL) returned this weekend after a month-long hiatus, bringing new but controversial figure Elon Musk to host the show.
Following a heartful Mother’s Day performance by Miley Cyrus and several cast members, Musk’s opening monologue began with him making fun of his own way of speaking.
“It’s an honour to be hosting Saturday Night Live, I mean that. Sometimes after I say something I have to say ‘I mean that,’ so people really know that I mean it — that’s because I don’t always have a lot intonational variation when I’m speaking, which I’m told makes for great comedy,” said Musk.
The founder of SpaceX and “Technoking of Tesla,” Musk’s appearance has lauded criticism from many on and off the show over his comments on social media as well as his immense wealth.
Currently, Musk is the second richest person in the world behind Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and had reached that position recently — profiting significantly amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though while he didn’t address his wealth, Musk did bring up some of the criticism leveled against him in his opening skit.
“I believe in a renewable energy future. I believe that humanity must become a multi-planetary spacefaring civilization … now I think if I just posted that on Twitter, I’d be fine,” said Musk. “But I also write things like ’69 days after 4/20 again haha.'”
“I don’t know, I thought it was funny that’s why I wrote ‘haha’ at the end.”
Acknowledging that sometimes he’ll post “strange things,” Musk said that’s just how his brain works.
“To anyone I’ve offended, I just want to say I’ve reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship — did you think I was also going to be a chill normal dude?” said Musk who shrugged his arms.
Musk also spoke about some of the “dumbest things” he ever did, like when he smoked weed on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Now, he says that he only ever hears about himself as a person that smokes weed on podcasts.
“It’s like reducing O.J. Simpson to ‘murderer,’ that was one time!”
After a joke that jabbed at electric car competitor, the Toyota Prius, Musk also said that being live on air was a great way to learn more about the host — like his son’s name, X Æ A-12.
“It’s pronounced ‘cat running across keyboard.'”
Bringing his mother Maye on the show to talk about himself as a kid, both made a final joke that many were speculating to be a staple of Musk’s skit.
“I’m excited for my Mother’s Day gift,” Maye exclaimed. “I just hope it’s not Dogecoin.”
“It is…” responded Musk, giddily.