Do You Have to Be Funny to Host SNL? Nope.
graphic by bailey kretschmer
Let’s address the elephant in the room: why the hell is Elon Musk hosting SNL this Sunday? We have a million different thoughts and opinions on this but we’ll start with gut reactions: Ew. Why put a billionaire who values money over safe working conditions for his employees on a fairly left-leaning comedy show? There is a simple answer, and it’s that every for-profit organization will value money and ratings over their brand “values.”
Musk is certainly not the worst billionaire they could have let host a show that’s supposed to be funny (and historically left-leaning). Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg would probably suck even more. However, according to this, we are all just a few billion dollars away from being able to host SNL, and THAT is something to note. Especially since Musk is not who would typically think of to host SNL.
Being the U.S.’s resident eccentric-billionaire type, we doubt he has much comedy writing experience or even acting experience. A perfect fit for a live weekly comedy show. Hey, he’s got enough money, maybe he’ll hire a ghostwriter for the monologue? We can hope. The only experience he has in writing or comedy is Twitter, and that’s a pretty low bar (but if this means anyone host next season...you didn’t see this, Lorne). Many of his recent tweets have some interesting albeit super-weirdo-billionaire-unfunny-guy ideas. For example, will “Irony Man” come to fruition? No idea. And to be quite honest, we’re not sure if we want it to. Do we want to see Baby Shark Tank? If he invests real money, it would be worth a watch.
However, there are some funnier tweets sprinkled throughout his feed. For instance, his April tweet, “The Earth is not flat, it’s a hollow globe & Donkey Kong lives there!” showed off his playful side. And then he tweeted in later in the month this witty and provocative question, “What does the future hlod?” (Yeah, it’s not a typo.) Maybe next he should tweet about how he plans on reallocating his $173 billion! So, an unpopular opinion, but this upcoming episode might be one to look forward to.
Overall, our opinion on Elon Musk’s hosting gig on SNL is pretty mixed, but to say the least, it will definitely be interesting. Grab your popcorn and prepare for a viewing experience that’s as out of this world as SpaceX’s Mars rocket is. Who knows, maybe the billionaire will surprise us all.