Chloe Fineman has accused Elon Musk of having been a terror when he hosted SNL.
Saturday Night Live‘s return for the sketch comedy show’s 50 year anniversary comes at a pivotal, deeply depressing time.
SNL is a cultural touchstone. It has seen many highs and lows over the years.
One of the recent lows saw notorious billionaire Elon Musk hosting. According to Chloe Fineman, his hostility backstage brought her to tears.
What did Chloe Fineman say about Elon Musk? Nothing good
At least he didn’t “offer” to buy her a horse.
Before Chloe Fineman said anything about Elon Musk, her beloved castmate Bowen Yang dropped hints on the topic.
In August, Bowen took a break from kissing every famously beautiful SNL host to appear as a guest on Watch What Happens Live.
There, he dished to Andy Cohen that one SNL guest had reduced one of his colleagues to tears backstage.
He didn’t name the perpetrator or the victim, leaving fans guessing. Many erroneously imagined some famous diva pitching a fit.
On Monday, November 11, Chloe Fineman posted and deleted a TikTok video. There, she accused Elon Musk of causing her to cry during his infamous 2021 SNL appearance.
According to Chloe Fineman, Elon Musk crossed the line
In her posted-and-deleted TikTok video, Saturday Night Live star Chloe Fineman explained that Elon Musk’s negative reaction to Dana Carvey’s impression of him prompted her to go public.
The impression came in the wake of the dismal 2024 election. Elon Musk has been Donald Trump’s devoted cheerleader.
Musk has also, historically, shown a clear resentment to certain forms of parody towards him. Especially when it’s by someone funnier than he is. Which, unfortunately for Musk, is almost everyone.
Chloe Fineman deleted the video after it was up for a few hours. Luckily I saved it…in it she says Elon Musk did not like her sketch: “You made I, Chloe Fineman burst into tears because I stayed up late writing a sketch. I was so excited, I came in, I asked if you had any… pic.twitter.com/p2RVHQMYuC
— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) November 12, 2024
Chloe Fineman recalled staying up all night to write a comedy sketch. She excitedly showed Elon Musk the script, but he read through it without laughing and rejected the script.
According to Chloe, she “burst into tears” as a result. She also encouraged the purchaser of Tesla to “have a ltitle manners here, sir.”
Celebrity guests sometimes notoriously reject SNL jokes. John Mulaney famously describes just one such experience with Mick Jagger. However, ill manners are unbecoming on just about everyone.
Was the ‘SNL’ sketch really not funny?
It is impossible to know how funny or unfunny the sketch might have been. Chloe Fineman did not furnish any details.
One can’t really judge by Elon Musk’s standards because, well, he has a complex relationship with humor. Musk desperately wants to be funny, but isn’t. And his relationship with other people’s jokes is pretty infamous, too.
Interestingly, Musk threw his support behind Donald Trump, a man who is unfortunately extremely funny. Not on purpose. Trump just wants to be liked, but is sometimes accidentally hilarious.
In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Elon Musk took to his Twitter account to respond to Chloe Fineman’s video. Though she had deleted her TikTok post, it had circulated on social media — including the site that Musk purchased.
“It was only on the Thursday before the Saturday that ANY of the sketches generated laughs,” Musk complained. “I was worried. I was like damn my SNL appearance is going to be so f–king unfunny that it will make a crackhead sober!!”
Replies, which come primarily from people who are both still using Twitter in late 2024 and who haven’t blocked Musk, were quick to assure Musk that he’s exactly as funny as he believes.