Cast Members Speak Out on Musk's SNL Appearance

Elon Musk is hosting Saturday Night Live on May 8 and while some cast members have joined the backlash, Michael Che says it's "gonna be exciting." "The show’s on 46 years and people still care about who’s being booked. I think that’s kind of dope," the Weekend Update co-anchor told Ellen DeGeneres on Wednesday, per Variety. When asked about the backlash by radio host Charlamagne the God on Tuesday, Che quipped, "I think white people just don’t like their billionaires for some reason." Pete Davidson also defended the choice of Musk this week, telling Seth Meyers that he doesn't understand why people are "freaking out." He joked Tuesday that he was going for dinner with Musk and SNL creator Lorne Michaels that night, and planned to ask Musk for a Tesla.

In now-deleted tweets last week, other cast members questioned the decision to have the billionaire host the show. Aidy Bryant tweeted a quote from Sen. Bernie Sanders: "The 50 wealthiest people in America today own more wealth than the bottom half of our people." Musk told Page Six on Wednesday that rumors about unrest amid the cast were "much ado about nothing" and everybody in rehearsals was friendly and willing to work with him. Jesse Essenberg at the AV Club likens the "disappointing" decision to have the "pandemic-enabling union buster" Musk host the show to Donald Trump's controversial appearance in 2015—though for now, he says Musk is more like the "eccentric-moron Trump who hosted in 2004 than the aspiring-demagogue Trump who hosted in 2015." (More Elon Musk stories.)