Cast members protest Elon Musk's Saturday Night Live appearance
Elon Musk has lined up a new gig outside his job as CEO of electric car maker Tesla and spaceship maker SpaceX. Over the weekend, the tech mogul announced he would host the iconic TV show Saturday Night Live, prompting a mixed reaction — including from the show's cast.
Musk confirmed his upcoming May 8 appearance — alongside musical guest Miley Cyrus — in a Twitter post on Saturday, writing: "Let's find out just how live Saturday Night Live really is."
Saturday Night Live doesn't make a habit of having business executives host its show, and Musk will be the first non-actor or non-athlete to do so since Donald Trump appeared in 2015 during his run for the presidency.
But soon after Musk's tweet, some of his future co-stars made their own posts.
"What the f--k does this even mean," wrote SNL regular Bowen Yang in an Instagram story, alongside a screenshot of Musk's post.
And as reported by CNBC, cast member Andrew Dismukes similarly posted "Only CEO I want to do a sketch with is Cher-E Oteri" — a reference to former SNL member Cheri Oteri.
Other cast members posted oblique messages that some construed as subtle digs at Musk.
Aidy Bryant posted a tweet from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders that criticized "the 50 wealthiest people in America today," for accruing more wealth than half of the country. Bustle reported that post "led to speculation that Bryant, an SNL cast member since 2012, might have been making a subtle statement about the billionaire's upcoming appearance on the show."
According to Forbes' "world's billionaires list," Musk is the second richest man in the world with an estimated fortune of $151 billion US — behind only Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. And on Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it had voted to approve a SpaceX plan to deploy Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit as part of the company's push to offer space-based broadband internet service.
SpaceX plans to eventually deploy 12,000 satellites. It has said previously the Starlink constellation will cost it roughly $10 billion.
