May 11, 2021 – During the last episode of Saturday Night Live, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that he was the first person with Asperger’s to host a pop sketch show.
“Or at least the first person to admit it,” he said during his opening monologue.
This may have been the first time that Musk has publicly stated that he has Asperger’s syndrome, reports the Associated Press. At least one former SNL host, Dan Aykroyd, has also talked about Asperger’s syndrome, AP notes.
Musk said he was honored to be the boss and stressed that he meant it.
“Sometimes after I say something, I have to say, ‘I mean it,” Musk explained, humorously noting that his tone of voice often does not change.
Musk made a witty joke about himself during his monologue and admitted that he often felt misunderstood.
“I know I sometimes say or post strange things, but this is how my brain works,” he said. “To everyone I have offended, I just want to say that I have invented electric cars and send people to Mars in a rocket ship. did you think I would be a cold, normal dude too? “
Ahead of this episode, SNL faced criticism for inviting Musk to host. Critics said the show glorified the billionaire who spread misinformation online, downplaying the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the early months of the pandemic, Musk posted on social media about the response to the pandemic and said that “the coronavirus panic is stupid,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. In November, he contracted the virus and said it was a mild case.
During one of the sketches, which featured a confrontation between cowboys, Musk joked that his character thought the masks were stupid during the bank robbery.
“Okay, for a while I thought masks were stupid,” he said. “But now I think masks make sense.”
Musk also brought his mother May to the stage, and they remembered the time when Musk created a video game about space when he was 12 years old. They joked that her Mother’s Day gift would be Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that Musk referred to multiple times throughout the episode.
Musk also appeared in the Weekend Update as a Dogecoin expert and in sketches about Mars, post-quarantine parties, and a murder trial with Mario characters where he played the obscure Varo. For the first time, SNL was broadcast live internationally on YouTube in over 100 countries.
