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Elon Musk To Host 'Saturday Night Live'

Billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, will host <em>Saturday Night Live</em> on May 8.
Britta Pedersen
/
AP
Billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, will host Saturday Night Live on May 8.

The last couple of days have been filled with exciting news for technology magnate Elon Musk, who is CEO of electric carmaker Tesla and chief engineer of SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company.

NBC announced over the weekend that Musk would host Saturday Night Live on May 8. The iconic sketch-comedy show is in its 46th season.

The announcement was made just hours after the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts docked with the International Space Station — nearly 24 hours after lifting off from Florida.

The capsule was used on SpaceX's first mission that flew humans last May. It's the first time an American capsule has been reused since the Gemini program, when an unmanned spacecraft flew twice in 1965.

Saturday Night Live doesn't usually have business executives host its show, but as pointed out in a story by The Associated Press, Musk is far from a stuffy corporate type. He regularly jokes around on Twitter, where he has nearly 52 million followers and has gotten into legal trouble for making disparaging remarks about critics and hinting that he might lead a buyout of Tesla that resulted him getting fined $20 million by stock market regulators.

Musk was in the news earlier this year when Tesla announced it would purchase $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, and that it would accept the currency from customers in the future.

While it is billionaire Musk's first time to host SNL, he's no stranger to television.

Not counting news interview shows and press conferences, Musk has made guest appearances on the CBS shows Young Sheldon and The Big Bang Theory. His voice has also been heard on the animated shows South Park, The Simpsons and Rick and Morty. Plus he made a cameo in the film Iron Man 2.

Reaction on social media to the decision to have Musk host SNL has been mixed. Some people called the decision "electric" while others questioned if no one else was available to host the show.

Miley Cyrus is scheduled to be the musical guest the night Musk hosts.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Doreen McCallister