Elon Musk on SNL, A Very Curious Saturday Night

All,

It used to be that Saturday Night Live was must see TV.

John Belushi. Bill Murray. Chevy Chase. Jane Curtin. Dan Aykroyd. Gilda Radner. Even in the early 80s, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Martin Short and later Chris Farley and Dana Carvey.

But it hasn't been must see TV for nearly 40 years -- at least for me. I couldn't name a single cast member without a lot of help from my daughter, Erin (and I don't think she has ever watched a full broadcast).

It's funny. Occasionally, my family members and staff recommend column ideas. Like this one. "You should write something about Elon Musk's guest appearance on SNL."

It would be like if I worked in an office. What would people be talking about around the coffee pot or water cooler? I think this might come up.

First impression? He was funny, even likable, and that surprises me. I was prepared to not like him or rail at some bombastic comment he made. It was harmless. Awkward at times, especially when he called his Mom up during the monologue and she was reading from a teleprompter. But harmless.

The world was holding its breath, waiting for the next outrageous thing he would say. All they got was this.

"One reason I've always loved SNL is that it's genuinely live," Musk said. "A lot of people don't realize that. We're actually live right now, which means I could say something truly shocking... Like I drive a Prius."

Okay. It was scripted. Maybe the SNL writers were likable and funny. Elon was just delivering the lines.

Musk did reveal something about himself, that if true, might explain a lot. He has Asperger's. As my wife walked out the door to go to work with kids with special needs, she explained that Asperger's is on the Autism scale. He could be brilliant, especially at the sciences -- highly functional, but socially awkward and not have the best of filters.

"It's an honor to be hosting Saturday Night Live. I mean that, sometimes after I say something I have to say, 'I mean that.' Some people rarely know what I mean, that's because I don't always have a lot of intonation or variation in how I speak, which I'm told makes for great comedy.

I'm actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger's to host SNL. Or at least the first to admit it. So I'll make a lot of eye contact with the cast tonight. But already I'm pretty good at running human and emulation mode.

I'd first like to share with you my vision for the future. I believe in a renewable energy future. I believe that humanity must become a multi-planetary spacefaring civilization. Those seem like exciting goals don't they.

I think if I just posted that on Twitter, I'd be fine. But I also write things like "69 days after 4/20 again haha." I don't know, I thought it was funny. That's why I wrote haha at the end."

MAYE MUSK

And we got to meet his Mom, Maye Musk. Beautiful, even at 73. A former finalist for Miss South Africa (but born in Canada), she has had her own string of accomplishments.

Teenage model. Dietician. Nutritionist. College Professor with two master's degrees. She was signed as the oldest ambassador for CoverGirl in 2017, has appeared in a Beyoncé music video, walked in shows during New York Fashion Week and graced the covers of magazines including Vogue Korea and New York.

But she is no comedian or actress. Uggh. Even the Dogecoin jokes didn't get a laugh. Here was the best part.

Elon: "Mom, do you remember when I was 12 and I created my own video game called Glastar about a spaceship that battles aliens?"

Maye: "I do. I remember they paid you $500, but you were too young to open a bank account so I had to open one for you."

Elon: "That's right. Whatever happened to that bank account?"

Maye: "That's not important. You turned that video game about space into reality."

Elon: "Unless you consider that reality might be a video game and we're all just computer simulations being played by a teenager in another planet."

DOGECOIN

Speaking of Dogecoin -- and this is the craziest part about Elon Musk -- is that markets go berserk whenever he opens his mouth.

According to Newsweek, The price of dogecoin tanked during Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Saturday Night Live appearance, prompting a wave of online ridicule and jokes about his performance.

At around 11:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, the price of dogecoin sat at 0.6765 USD, according to a live tracker maintained by Yahoo Finance.

Then at around 12:30 a.m. ET on Sunday—roughly half an hour before the show ended—the price of dogecoin fell to 0.5115 USD—a 24 percent drop in value.

Musk added: "Dogecoin was invented as a joke, as essentially to make fun of cryptocurrency. Fate loves irony. The most entertaining outcome is probably the most ironic outcome: that the currency that was invented as a joke in fact becomes the real currency."

The subtle jab at the cryptocurrency didn't only send investors into a selling frenzy, it sent the trading app Robinhood into yet another downward spiral of work overload during a buyer-seller panic. Robinhood experienced nationwide outages in the United States after Musk and his mom made comments during the monologue.

If you got Dogecoin for Mother's Day, sorry.

IRONIC COMPARISON TO OJ

Elon compared himself to former SNL host, OJ Simpson. Both are terribly misunderstood.

"A lot of times people are reduced to the dumbest thing they ever did. Like one time I smoked weed on Joe Rogan's podcast and now, all time I hear, 'Elon Musk, all he ever does is smoke weed on podcasts.' Like I go from podcast to podcast, lighting up joints. It happened once.

It's like reducing O.J. Simpson to a murderer. It was one time. Fun fact: O.J. also hosted the show in '79. And again, in '96. Killed both times."

Like OJ, he wants us to forgive him.

"Look, I know I say or post strange things but that's just how my brain works. To anyone I have offended, I just want to say I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars on a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?"

The problem for me is I can't forgive Elon Musk. He may not be a murderer, but he is guilty of extreme negligence. Scores of people have died because he sold them something he called "Auto Pilot" and they mindlessly believed him -- to their death. At least with Dogecoin or Bitcoin, he is only robbing them of their life's savings; not their life.

Elon, try running your human, emulation mode. If not, you are like those alien monsters you created as a boy: coldly destroying Earthlings.

Scott