Dana Carvey Concedes He Can’t “Do Elon Musk Very Well”

Dana Carvey admitted that his Elon Musk impression needs some work during the Friday edition of his Superfly podcast with fellow Saturday Night Live alum David Spade.

“I can’t do Elon Musk very well,” Carvey said after he slipped into his take on Musk and the Tesla CEO and X (formerly Twitter) owner’s embrace of “dark MAGA.” “But I can do something that sounds not like anything. He has an incredible accent … South Africa via Canada, via Pennsylvania. It’s almost like, it’s a little bit of Australian in there, a little bit of British, but he’s not totally that.”

Carvey’s remarks come after Musk criticized his portrayal, and SNL in general, after the variety show responded to Donald Trump’s 2024 election win by sarcastically trying to get on the Republican president-elect’s good side in its Nov. 9 cold open.

The segment also included an appearance from Carvey as Musk, sporting his “dark MAGA” hat, celebrating Trump’s victory.

“Dana Carvey just sounds like Dana Carvey,” Musk said on X when asked what he thought of the comedian’s impression of him.

Musk went on to bash the show, which he hosted in 2021, in general.

“SNL has been dying slowly for years, as they become increasingly out of touch with reality,” Musk wrote.

He added, “They are so mad that @realDonaldTrump won.”

Carvey, who returned to the variety show this fall after his 1986-1993 run as a castmember to play President Joe Biden, also shared that he’d be returning to SNL in December.

The show airs its next new episode on Dec. 7, hosted by Paul Mescal, with Shaboozey as the musical guest. Carvey last appeared on the Nov. 16 episode of SNL, playing Biden during a cold open that spoofed the president’s meeting with Trump in the Oval Office earlier that week.

And Carvey indicated that when he returns, he might have more of a spring in his step, literally.

“When you leave the good nights at SNL, sometimes you do it with the host. You go under the bleachers and you come out. So I think it was John Mulaney. He just went right before me, and I think he was going, and then he started skipping,” Carvey said. “And I started skipping too, and skipping feels really good compared to walking or even running. It’s kinda gentle. So now, if you ever see me on SNL — I’m going back in December — you see me come off the stage, just remember, within seconds, I will be skipping for quite a while. That’s kinda inside baseball.”