Elon Musk and Saturday Night Live have been quite synonymous as of late, with the latter sharing less-than-glowing thoughts about Dana Carvey’s impression of him on the show last weekend. Now, a new can of worms has seemingly been opened, as cast member Chloe Fineman made a significant allegation against Musk this week. Fineman alleged that when Musk guest hosted the show back in 2021, he made multiple members of the ensemble cry. Now, the Tesla head honcho has issued a response to the actress’ accusation.
Months ago, cast member Bowen Yang recalled a guest host bringing cast members to tears before a table read because “he hated the ideas.” Yang later provided further context but again, would not say who the person was. Well, in a since-deleted TikTok video, which was captured by Chris Gardner of THR on X, Chloe Fineman claimed that the host in question was Elon Musk. The comedian’s video began with her discussing Musk’s disdain for the aforementioned impression, before she shared her version of the events:
Guess what? 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 questions and you stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla and were like, ‘It’s not funny.' I waited for you to be like, ‘Haha jk.’ Then you started pawing through my script, like flipping each page, being like, ‘I didn’t laugh at this. I didn’t laugh once, not one time.’
Per the actress, the sketch eventually made it to air, and that she “had a really good time” working on it and thought the businessman was “really funny in it.” Sometime after the post was taken down, Elon Musk posted his response to X. While he admitted that “It worked out in the end,” it would seem he did have reservations early on:
Frankly, it was only on the Thursday before the Saturday that ANY of the sketches generated laughs. I was worried. I was like damn my SNL appearance is going to be so fucking unfunny that it will make a crackhead sober!! But then it worked out in the end 😮💨
One constant variable here seems to be that there was indeed some kind of friction in the lead-up to that specific SNL episode, which represented just one of Elon Musk’s TV credits. Aside from that, both parties also seem to agree that everything turned out for the best. Musk’s hosting stint proved to be somewhat polarizing, with even some members of the long-running sketch show’s cast expressing mixed feelings about it at the time. The installment saw Musk dress up as Wario, play a cowboy and more.
This all effectively puts an end to the mystery revolving around the guest host who reportedly made some of the show’s actors cry. Considering that Chloe Fineman deleted her video, it’s hard to say whether she might speak on the matter further. In any case, it appeared that Elon Musk wanted to make his position on the subject clear as well.
Saturday Night Live Season 50 returns on November 16 with Charli XCX as host and musical guest. You can also stream episodes using a Peacock subscription.