Elon Musk spent nearly half a billion dollars to get humiliated in the election, but at least he came away with a SNL parody.
Jeremy Culhane played the mogul during an appearance with Weekend Update’s Colin Jost as he tried to make sense of his bruising election defeats. The actor gave a convincing impression of the tycoon’s halting speeches and absurd attempts to change the subject by talking about a future that won’t happen. “Imagine,” Culhane’s Musk finished a sentence several times without aftereffect.
Days after his major campaign investments proved unsuccessful (and a week after his Cybertruck was officially deemed a failure, compounding injuries), the comical Musk sought to change the subject.
“You’re making headlines because you wasted half a billion dollars in the midterms…almost every candidate you supported lost,” Jost said.
“I’m in the news because my car flipped… it was like a fucking Hot Wheel,” Musk responded with Buttheadian enthusiasm.
Jost pointed out the irony that “you moved to Texas because California was run by Democrats” and now Texas would be too. “How does that make you feel?” » » asked Jost.
“Bad,” Musk said, before cluelessly changing the subject to a car flip and barrage of “you-know-uhs” that the tycoon is known for. (In real life, Musk tried to spin the losses into justification for conspiracy theories that he was involved in rigging the 2024 election.)
The show’s writers piled on when they asked Musk to ask Grok to give him an “epic dirty roast” (Culhane’s currency for what Musk considers a major burn) and the AI chatbot came back with: “You are the worst thing South Africa has ever done; » “When you’re on TV, it’s like an episode of ‘Hate on the Spectrum’; and “If you have 100 more kids, maybe one of them will talk to you.”
Musk was thrust into the pop culture spotlight this fall with Alex Gibney’s four-hour investigative documentary, which deconstructed the myth of the tycoon and demonstrated that he is far more dangerous than cartoonish appearances in Hollywood productions suggest. Musk recently bought spectrum, spent $1 billion on Skydance, and was criticized for allegedly disabling Starshield and potentially endangering the lives of Ukrainians.
The character had recently been played by Mike Myers, such as in a cold and open appearance a year ago as he maniacally yelled “Legalize comedy” behind performances of Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and other appearances in which he did a disjointed two-dance. This impression featured a lot of set changes (and more than its share of Mike Myers being Mike Myers), while Culhane Saturday Night was more effectively restrained and precise, leaving open the possibility that he might reprise the character in the future. SNL episodes.
Gibney’s film shows how Musk was adept at engaging in behavior that was sufficiently cartoonish that people tended to underestimate him, a point that was underlined even in the sketch when, after once again launching into an epic vulgar roast and car flip, Jost said, “I can’t believe you’re the richest person in the world.”
SNL has a delicate relationship with the tycoon. Five years ago, Musk himself participated in an appearance that caused several cast members to boycott, brought Chloe Fineman to tears, and is now considered a poor choice to cuddle a toxic figure.
Saturday’s appearance could be seen as an attempt by the show to atone for that misstep, although some critics will say it further transforms Musk into a colorful media character at the expense of his status as a more serious threat.
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