Elon Musk is making his SNL hosting debut this Saturday, May 8. The business magnate will be joined by Miley Cyrus who is set to perform. Ahead of the announcement, Musk’s appearance has influenced a spike in cryptocurrency and caused a stir online.
Business Man, Billionaire, and Innovator
Musk’s career spans beyond co-founding Tesla or SpaceX. Before his rise to mainstream fame, Musk spent his 20s creating X.com — now known as PayPal — and became a millionaire at just 27 after selling his start-up company Zip2. Media attention swirled in after he announced SpaceX would be launching a car into space. By 2018, his plans came to fruition, launching a red Tesla car with its dummy driver, Starman, to orbit around the sun.
In recent years, Musk has become influential on social media and has amassed a following, becoming the center of cryptocurrency and stocks memes. He is a strong advocate for BitCoin; His clean energy car company, Tesla, even accepts it as a form of payment. Musk became a father again last year after his girlfriend, singer-songwriter Grimes, gave birth to a boy which they named X Æ A-Xii.
SNL Cast’s Cryptic Post Spark Speculation
Musk’s announcement on April 24, sparked minor drama online after cast members Bowen Yang and Aidy Bryant were accused of “throwing shade” at the future SNL host. Musk took to Twitter to show his excitement for appearing on the late-night comedy. “Let’s find out just how live Saturday Night Live really is,” he said. Yang reposted the tweet on his Instagram story quoting it, “What the f**k does this even mean.” Bryant retweeted Senator Bernie Sanders shortly after Musk’s, which people assumed was shade towards him. Sanders’ tweet read, “The 50 wealthiest people in America today own more wealth than the bottom half of our people. Let me repeat that, because it is almost too absurd to believe: the 50 wealthiest people in this country own more wealth than some 165 MILLION Americans. That is a moral obscenity.” Musk officially reclaimed his title as the World’s Richest Person earlier this year, which is why people assumed Bryant’s retweet was aimed towards him.
The Wrap reports that neither Yang nor Bryant’s posts were geared towards Musk stating, “If a cast member or writer was upset or uncomfortable performing with any host, executive producer Lorne Michaels would let them sit that one out,” their source said.
Since his post, other cast members have shown nothing but love for the 49-year-old Tesla founder. Pete Davidson appeared on Late Night With Seth Meyers where he got vocal on Musk’s appearance this week. “I don’t know why people are freaking out!” he said, “They’re like ‘Oh, I can’t believe that Elon Musk is hosting’ and I’m like ‘The guy that makes the earth better kinda and makes cool things and sends people to Mars?'” Davidson also admitted that he would 100,000% join Musk for a smoke session if the opportunity presented itself and joked about asking him for a Tesla to gift to his mom.
Fellow Cast member Michael Che also expressed his excitement to Meyers regarding Musk’s appearance. “He’s the richest man in the world, how could you not be excited for that?” he said. Che also defended Musk’s appearance on SNL on The Breakfast Club. “I think white people just don’t like their billionaires for some reason,” he said, “It’s weird cuz [SNL] loves our billionaires.”
Dogecoin: To The Moon
Musk’s influence on cryptocurrency has sparked Dogecoin to rise and is speculated to skyrocket after his SNL appearance. His involvement with the currency started as a joke but has become associated with him, however, he doesn’t endorse Dogecoin. In fact, he often jokes about it on his Twitter account. Last year, he tweeted “One Word: Doge,” and caused its shares to spiked up almost 20%. The currency has become one big inside joke and Musk loves adding fuel to the fire. Using terms like “To The Moon” has become closely associated with the currency and believing it will one day be on the level BitCoin is at. Dogecoin has shown a boom every time Musk has tweeted about it.
It’s inevitable pic.twitter.com/eBKnQm6QyF
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2020
Analysts believe Dogecoin will skyrocket after the weekend. Just this week, the currency has gone up 40%. In a video posted to Twitter, fans asked Musk if “Doge” jokes will appear on the show to which he replied, “We’ll see.” Jesse Cohen, a senior analyst told Fast Company that slowly but surely the currency will rise after this week. “We see a greater likelihood that Dogecoin will reach the $1-mark in the coming days,” he said, “with probability rising for DOGE to rally to as high as $5 later in 2021 amid soaring social media interest.” Musk referred to himself as “THE DOGEFATHER” poking fun at the currency and referencing the movie The Godfather.
You can watch SNL this Saturday at 11:30 pm ET on NBC.
