This is what happens when Elon Musk asks Twitter for advice.
The Tesla TSLA, +1.57% and SpaceX CEO will host “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, which has already drawn cheers and jeers for Musk — as well as for Miley Cyrus, who is set to perform as the musical guest on NBC’s live sketch show on Saturday. And Musk leaned into all of the attention last weekend by asking his almost 53 million Twitter TWTR, +0.09% followers to give him some “skit” ideas before he reportedly joins the cast for rehearsals on Tuesday.
“Throwing out some skit ideas for SNL. What should I do?” he asked — which went about as well as you might expect. It had drawn almost 50,000 comments as of early Monday afternoon.
Some readers, including current and former “SNL” cast members like Chris Redd and Jon Lovitz, pointed out that the comedy show features sketches, not skits, for one thing.
Granted, Lovitz also tweeted that he liked Musk’s idea of an “Iron Man” parody that would feature “Irony Man,” who fights villains with the power of irony.
In fact, Musk lobbed a couple of “skit” ideas out there, himself, that fall squarely in the “dad jokes” category, such as suggesting that “Baby Shark” and “Shark Tank” merge to form “Baby Shark Tank.”
But some critics took the opportunity to point out recent incidents of Tesla vehicles catching on fire, as well as mocking his infamous Cybertruck design, or reminding him of the time he called a Thailand cave rescue diver a “pedo.”
Indeed, Musk’s frequent, off-the-cuff remarks on Twitter have fueled much of the backlash against his upcoming hosting gig. He has been called out for: bullying his critics online; allegedly manipulating cryptocurrency prices; denying the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and spurning government lockdowns. Meanwhile, Tesla is facing multiple federal investigations into crashes of its vehicles, and whether its Autopilot feature was in use at the time of them.
Read more: Elon Musk to host ‘SNL’ next month — but some critics say that’s not funny
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The National Labor Relations Board also recently ordered Musk to remove a tweet that discouraged union organizing, which many critics, including actor Bradley Whitford, seized upon while slamming the CEO last weekend, as well.
But the biggest target on Musk’s back has been his wealth. The Tesla billionaire is the second richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, or the third wealthiest if you follow Forbes. So in lieu of a sketch, some people including former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson suggested that he use his money to help the less fortunate. And Michael Che, the “Weekend Update” host on “SNL,” cracked a joke on “The Tonight Show” that he hopes the billionaire will keep up the “tradition” of “SNL” hosts giving “a couple million dollars” to each cast member.
In fact, after even some “SNL” writers and cast members took swipes at Musk’s upcoming appearance on their social media accounts, the show’s creator and producer Lorne Michaels reportedly told the cast that they won’t be forced to appear onstage with Musk if they don’t want to do it.
Read more: ‘SNL’ cast members slam Elon Musk’s upcoming appearance in now-deleted Instagram stories
But Musk’s fans have responded with enthusiasm to “The Dogefather’s” upcoming gig, such as bringing the “Dogefather” to life, or bringing back the late Chris Farley’s iconic sketch of Matt Foley, a motivational speaker who’s fallen on hard times and lives in “a van down by the river.” Financial blogger Ben Carlson suggested that Musk play “Matt Foley’s brother who is a short seller who lives in a van down by the river.”