Saturday Night Live cast members appear to delete disapproving social media posts about Elon Musk hosting

The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is due to make his SNL debut on 8 May

A few Saturday Night Live cast members appear to have deleted social media posts indicating their disapproval of tech giant Elon Musk’s hosting spot.

Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, is due to make his SNL debut on 8 May, NBC announced on Saturday (24 April). He also shared the news on his personal Twitter, writing: “Let’s find out just how live Saturday Night Live really is.”

After the announcement, cast members Bowen Yang, Aidy Bryant, and Andrew Dismukes appeared to show their unhappiness at the decision in a handful of cryptic social media posts.

Yang, a staff writer on SNL since 2018, posted a frowning emoji on Instagram seemingly in response to the announcement. Yang also later shared a screenshot of Musk’s tweet, adding: “What the f*** does this even mean?”

Shortly after Musk’s forthcoming stint as host was announced, Aidy Bryant – a regular on the show since 2012 and star of Shrill – shared a tweet from Bernie Sanders, which many have taken as her disapproval of the hosting decision.

The tweet did not directly mention the tech billionaire, but it did call out the “absurd” fact that “the 50 wealthiest people in America today own more wealth than the bottom half of our people”.

Dismukes, another writer-turned-actor on the programme, also appeared to weigh in on the decision.

In an Instagram post, he wrote: “Only CEO I wanna do sketch with is Cher-E Oteri”, a reference to Cheri Oteri, a regular cast member on SNL between 1995 and 2000.

While it was unclear whether the posts, all shared via Instagram Stories, had expired after 24 hours or had been deleted,The Wrapand Insider reported that they have been taken down as of Wednesday morning. The Independent has reached out to representatives for SNL for clarification.

In recent years, Musk has found himself at the centre of controversy. Amid the pandemic, he has attracted criticism for tweeting that Covid-19 tests were “extremely bogus” and that the “coronavirus panic is dumb”.

In December last year, the 49-year-old came under fire for mocking the use of gender pronouns.

He later defended himself, stating: “I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an aesthetic nightmare.”