[imagesource: Saturday Night Live]

This weekend, Elon Musk, who is worth a cool $166 billion or so, hosted Saturday Night Live.

That decision had been met with plenty of backlash in the lead-up to the show, with Musk having downplayed the dangers of COVID-19 a number of times over the past year or so.

There was also that time he called a British man a ‘pedo’ on Twitter, along with other high-profile controversies.

All of that aside, Musk made his SNL debut, which begun with the customary opening monologue, during which he revealed that he has been diagnosed with Asperger’s, “considered a high-functioning form of autism”.

Here’s NME:

“I’m actually…the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL – or at least the first to admit it,” Musk said, despite former SNL cast member Dan Aykroyd hosting the show in 2003 while admitting to having mild Asperger’s.

“So I won’t make a lot of eye contact with the cast tonight. But don’t worry, I’m pretty good at running ‘human’ in emulation mode.”

Maybe Elon has been picking up ‘human’ emulation mode tips from the OG robot, Mark Zuckerberg.

Let’s begin with that opening monologue. The show has, for now, made the official videos available for viewing in South Africa, so that’s a nice touch:

I’m not so sure about his delivery, but at least his mother is still rocking a proper ‘Seth Afrikken’ accent.

Elon featured in a number of sketches, but we’ll pop two of the most viewed below.

To begin, ‘Chad on Mars’, featuring Chad (Pete Davidson), who has been chosen to save the colonists at Elon Musk’s Space X Mars habitat.

And yes, that is Miley Cyrus:

Before we get to ‘Wario’, let’s get an overview of some of the reviews via NewsAU:

Recapping the show, Vulture’s Matthew Love gave the episode two stars.

“The show wasn’t a disaster,” he wrote…

Former SNL cast member Jeff Richards, recapping the show with Entertainment Weekly, said, “Musk is killing it. I mean comedy … After watching this episode I’m considering not buying a Tesla.”

Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Fienberg said that after all the hype, Musk’s SNL debut was more “forgettable than controversial”.

On social media, there were some very stinging critiques (“Elon Musk is so painfully and genuinely unfunny holy s**t”), whilst others stuck up for the multibillionaire (“Elon Musk just crushed his SNL debut. All the haters who thought he wouldn’t be funny are full of it”).

‘Wario’, you’re up:

I suppose the premise is decent enough.

Let’s end with one of the nastier reviews, via The Guardian, which called it a “brutally awkward episode”:

SNL is rarely worse than when it attempts to show how hip it is to the times, and this might be the single worst example of that.

It’s also in contention for worst sketch of not only this season, but the last several. Musk stumbles his way through (his cadence here is truly baffling), but honestly, he’s not that much worse than the rest of a somewhat bumbling cast.

…this will go down as one of SNL’s worst episodes ever, although it would be wrong to lay the blame entirely at Musk’s feet.

Some solace for Elon, amidst the stinging reviews.

All in all, probably not the finest Saturday night entertainment out there this weekend.

[sources:nme&newsau&guardian]