Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, will host Saturday Night Live May 8, the official account of the show tweeted Saturday. And I have a lot of questions, namely: why?
Musk is perhaps known for his unconventional sense of humor, for lack of a better word, on Twitter, but is it entertaining enough to support a 90-minute slot of comedy? SNL seems to hope so. And no, his partner Grimes is not the musical guest on the episode. That role goes to Miley Cyrus, in what will be her sixth SNL appearance.
As Variety notes, SNL possesses Previously, there were a few professional hosts, including New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in 1990 and NBC’s Brandon Tartikoff in 1983, but Musk would be the first tech CEO to take the stage.
Its companies have been in the headlines in recent weeks, for better or for worse. Last week, NASA brought in SpaceX to build the first lunar lander from the Apollo program and its Crew Dragon spacecraft successfully anchored with the International Space Station early Saturday morning, the company’s third crewed mission. Tesla, on the other hand, has been criticized again for the driver assistance system of its vehicles, or automatic pilot, following a fatal accident in Texas. Federal safety regulators announced an investigation into the incident, in which a supposedly driverless Tesla crashed into a tree and ignite, earlier this week.
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Musk has made a few pop culture cameos over the years, most notably in Iron man 2 and The Big Bang Theory–and famous smoke a joint with Joe Rogan during one of his appearances on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. But can his bizarre public persona and meme-based humor really translate into live-action comedy skits? I guess we’ll find out in a few weeks.