Presenting SNL's 20 worst hosts: Will Elon Musk end up on this list?

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone's list of the 20 worst hosts includes George Steinbrenner, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, Rudy Giuliani, January Jones, Lindsay Lohan, Andrew Dice Clay, Martin Lawrence and, of course, Donald Trump in his second hosting stint as a presidential candidate in 2015. "When NBC announced that the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk would be hosting Saturday Night Live this week, the booking was met with righteous indignation from all corners of the internet, with some citing Musk’s controversial views on everything from Covid-19 to crypto-currency," says Noel Murray. "But for the show’s longtime fans, there’s an even bigger concern: Can Musk be funny? Or will this be another all-time SNL catastrophe? Throughout its 46 seasons, the legendary sketch-comedy show has had its share of dud hosts — with some performing so badly that longtime producer Lorne Michaels has buried their episodes deep, keeping them out of syndicated packages and off the web. Sometimes athletes or pop singers find it impossible to read jokes off a cue card. Sometimes a bigwig used to getting his way (like, y’know, Elon Musk) doesn’t want to play along with a bunch of snarky comedy writers. And sometimes there’s just bad mojo in the air — either because of what’s going on in the real world or because the host gets under the skin of SNL’s cast and crew."

ALSO:

• Elon Musk promises in his SNL promos to behave: "I'm a wild card, so there's no telling what I might do," he says at first in his promos with Miley Cyrus and Cecily Strong, adding: "Fine, we'll be good..ish."
• Pete Davidson again says he doesn't get why Musk is so controversial for doing "nerd sh*t": Davidson said on The Breakfast Club Thursday that the SNL's cast dinner with Musk earlier this week was the first cast dinner since the start of the pandemic. "We didn't discuss it at all because we're all just like… I just don't understand why this is the dude everyone's so freaked out about," Davidson said of the controversy over Musk hosting. "I was like, 'What did he do? He's just like a really wealthy businessman that makes, like, nerd sh*t.' I don't know. He's really nice. I'm excited."