Elon Musk has responded to “Saturday Night Live” cast member Chloe Fineman revealing that he made her cry in the days leading up to his appearance on the show. And he’s taken a relatively diplomatic tone, though stopping short of actually issuing an apology.
Let’s back up a sec. After Dana Carvey made his debut as Musk on “SNL” November 9, the Tesla CEO was not happy. “‘SNL’ has been dying slowly for years, as they become increasingly out of touch with reality,” he posted on X. He also criticized Carvey by saying “Dana Carvey just sounds like Dana Carvey.”
Fineman was not pleased about his remarks. So she took to TikTok to deliver a full-on rebuttal. She has since deleted the post.
“Okay, I just saw some news article about Elon Musk being like butthurt about SNL and his impression, but I’m like ‘You’re clearly watching the show!’” Fineman said on the social media platform. “Like what are you talking about. And I’m like, you know what, I’m gonna come out and say at long last that I’m the cast member that he made cry. And he’s the host that made someone cry. Maybe there’s others. But I saw some articles and stuff and I was like ‘I’m not gonna say anything.’ But I’m like, no, if you’re gonna like go on your platform and be rude, like, guess what? You made I, Chloe Fineman, burst into tears because I stayed up all night writing the sketch, I was so excited, I came in, I asked if you had any questions and you stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla and were like, ‘It’s not funny.’ I waited for you to be like, ‘Haha, JK.’ No. Then you started pawing through my script, like flipping each page being like, ‘I didn’t laugh at this. I didn’t laugh once. Not one time.’ Cut to: The sketch made it on, and it was like fine and I actually had a really good time and I thought you were really funny in it, but, you know, have a little manners here. Sir!”
Now Musk has weighed in, tweeting his reply to THR senior staff writer Chris Gardner, who reposted the TikTok video to X after she’d deleted it.
Musk wrote, “Frankly, it was only on the Thursday before the Saturday that ANY of the sketches generated laughs. I was worried. I was like damn my SNL appearance is going to be so fucking unfunny that it will make a crackhead sober!! But then it worked out in the end [exhale emoji].”
Not an apology, but not a meltdown either.