Elon Musk Was Apparently So Mean on "SNL" He Made a Cast Member Cry

"You stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla."

Fright Night

Remember when Elon Musk hosted "Saturday Night Live" way back in 2021 (you know, when he also dressed up as the Nintendo character Wario)?

A seemingly unthinkable thing to happen today, Musk was apparently so unkind to cast member Chloe Fineman while prepping for the show that he made her cry.

"You made I, Chloe Fineman, burst into tears," she said in a now-deleted TikTok, addressing Musk.

Cold Critic

Fineman revealed the incident in response to Musk trashing a recent episode of SNL that spoofed him during its cold open, confirming that he was the unnamed male host that co-star Bowen Yang alleged had made "multiple cast members cry."

As she recalls — with exceptional good humor, all things considered — Fineman was excited about the sketch she had spent all night writing for Musk. But when she showed it to him, the guest host reacted harshly.

"I asked if you have any questions, and you stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla," Fineman recalled. "And you were like:" — doing her best Musk impression —  "It's not funny."

Fineman waited for Musk to reveal that he was joking. But he wasn't.

"Then you started pawing through my script, like flipping each page being like, 'I didn't laugh,'" she said, quoting Musk. "'I didn't laugh once. Not one time.'"

The sketch still aired, and despite the rude comments, Fineman said she ended up having a "really good time." She even thought that Musk was "really funny in it."

"But, y'know," she added, "have a little manners here, sir!"

Typical Tyrant

On Tuesday, Musk responded to Fineman's story, and didn't even bother to deny it.

"Frankly, it was only on the Thursday before the Saturday that ANY of the sketches generated laughs," he wrote in a tweet. "I was worried."

As CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has a history of treating his subordinates harshly. He's been accused of berating employees in sudden fits of rage, and at times even tyrannically firing them on the spot. His biographer Walter Isaacson described this as Musk entering "demon mode."

At X-formerly-Twitter, he terminated employees who criticized him and even publicly mocked one with muscular dystrophy by accusing them of malingering. Musk has also fired SpaceX employees for being critical of his behavior.

In short, it's not hard to believe that Musk was being an asshole on the SNL set. Or anywhere, for that matter.

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