SNL's Weekend Update Mocks Elon Musk's $500 Million Midterm Loss

Elon Musk spent nearly $500 million on Republican candidates, and "Saturday Night Live" spent a Weekend Update segment making him pay for it. The show's November post-midterms episode sent featured player Jeremy Culhane to the desk as an "unhinged" Musk, confronting the aftermath of Tuesday's elections.

The record behind the joke is blunt. Musk's spending concentrated on his home state of Texas, and most of Texas's statewide races flipped Democratic. Anchor Colin Jost opened the interview on that number: "Elon, you've been in the news because you wasted half a billion dollars on the midterms."

What did 'Musk' talk about instead?

Anything else. Culhane's Musk tried to redirect to a car crash: "No, I'm in the news because my car did a flip. My car did a flip. Remember? It was like a freaking Hot Wheel." He added: "I was like totally chill. I was like thug life. Imagine."

Jost pressed on a second piece of Texas news from the same week: Musk's halt to production of the Tesla Cybertruck. The reply was the same deflection. "Hey, remember when my car did a flip? It was epic," Culhane's Musk said. "But I was just like, 'Hold my beer.'"

The character then spiraled into a fantasy monologue about hanging out with Jost and Che, turning away women who asked to join, and imagining his leather jacket becoming a suit of armor while crowds chanted his name. "That would be amazing, man. Amazing. Like, imagine?"

Jost's response was one line: "I cannot believe you are the richest person in the world."

How did Jost frame the Texas punchline?

The anchor then delivered the segment's tightest summary of Musk's political position, point by point:

• "You moved to Texas because California was run by Democrats."
• "You moved all your companies to Texas because you didn't want to pay taxes."
• "You even built your own town in Texas."
• "And now Texas is run by Democrats. So now you're going to have to pay taxes. So how does that make you feel?"

Said "Elon": "Bad."

"I guess that's what I thought. I mean, I would feel bad too," Jost answered. The character's comeback — "Ouchie! Ouchie! That is another epic vulgar roast from Colin Jost, my poorest friend" — set up the sketch's final device: the "epic vulgar roast," which the fake Musk called "my AI Grok's most epic hardcore feature."

What did Grok's roasts say?

The character asked Grok to roast him at his own expense, and the show ran three of them:

• "Elon Musk, you're the worst thing South Africa has ever done."
• "When you're on TV, it feels like an episode of 'Hate on the Spectrum.'"
• "If you have 100 more kids, one of them will talk to you."

The bit closed with the character screaming "Shut it down, Grok, shut it down!" as he fled the Weekend Update desk.

Notably, the sketch did not address Musk's role in the incoming administration or his broader political ambitions — the writers kept the damage local, to Texas and the half-billion dollars. Whether the segment signals a sustained SNL turn against a figure it once hosted, or a one-week response to a one-week news cycle, will show in the next episodes.