REUTERS/Mike Blake
- Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is only the second billionaire CEO to host Saturday Night Live.
- Donald Trump is the only other billionaire CEO to have hosted the 46-year-old show.
- Though his fortune is far greater than Trump's, Musk doesn't have as much entertainment experience.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Elon Musk will be the second-ever billionaire CEO to host Saturday Night Live on May 8.
SNL asked Musk, the chief executive officer of electric car company Tesla and rocket maker SpaceX, to host last month. In doing so, the show deviated from its norm of inviting stars from the entertainment world to host an episode of the long-running comedy show.
SNL went on the air in October 1975 and has since aired hundreds of episodes with hundreds of different guest hosts, a including comedians, celebrity personalities, and actors and actresses. Occasionally, even athletes, like Michael Jordan and George Foreman, and politicians, like Al Gore, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani, have been invited to host.
But a billionaire and a CEO? That's a rare occasion, according to an April list of all the past SNL hosts compiled by Ranker.com. A spokesperson for NBC, the network host of SNL, did not respond to Insider's requests for information on this story.
Read more: Elon Musk's optimism is his most polarizing trait. Leaders everywhere should take note.
Former President Donald Trump is the only other billionaire CEO to host the show. But when he did so for the first time in 2004, he was already known in the entertainment world for his time on "The Apprentice." His second time hosting in 2015 was amid his bid for the presidential election. Though the episode drew criticism, it had the highest ratings in years.
Trump's wealth, estimated by Forbes in 2020 to be about $2.5 billion, also pales in comparison to Musk's, which is about $184 billion and the second-highest in the world after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Other billionaires on the show have been few and far between. George Steinbrenner, former owner of the New York Yankees, for example, hosted in 1990. And other CEOs have been nil, according to the Ranker.com list.
Though Musk is often in the spotlight thanks to his Twitter, where he has 53 million followers, and through media appearances like Joe Rogan's podcast and the celebrity audio app Clubhouse, he has little experience in entertainment. Musk didn't respond to Insider's request for comment for this story.
On Twitter earlier this week, he asked followers for help coming up with skits for the show. Some of Musk's ideas for skits included a "Baby Shark Tank" and "Irony Man."
-Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2021
But the tweet drew criticism from the cast of the show, politicians, and others, who told him to pay his fair share of taxes or support his workers forming a union.
Pete Davidson, a member of the SNL cast, stuck up for the CEO, though, saying he planned to ask Musk for a Tesla.
"People are like, 'I can't believe Elon Musk is hosting,' you mean the guy that makes the Earth better and makes cool things and sends people to Mars?" Davidson told Seth Meyers on "Late Night."