Mike Myers was back tonight as Elon Musk for another SNL cold open.
After the March 6 closed door cabinet meeting blow up between Marco Rubio and Elon Musk, SNL had Donald Trump brokering a truce between Secretary of State “good little Marco” and the SpaceX owner over DOGE’s root canals on the U.S. government– with some White Lotus and Dr. Evil tossed in there.
“You’re the GOAT, you’re the scapegoat, but it is still a goat,” the James Austin Johnson portrayed Trump told Marcello Hernández.“Who the Hell does he think he is?” SNL’s POTUS asked himself in a rare and laughs mined sense of self-awareness. “Adrien Brody?”
SNL’s Rubio may think he’s the two-time and long speech giving Oscar winner, but the show’s latest Elon is proudly calling himself “tech support,” as the real-life Musk does too.
Tossing the one-liners around, some directly from the real Trump, Musk and Rubio, and a lesson from the Donald in insults, the best part of tonight’s Oval Office cold open was all Myers.
“Phase one of my plan is complete,” Myers’ Musk said in some internal (a.k.a. voiceover) dialogue. “Ingratiate yourself to the President and take over the media. But was taking this job a bad idea?A lot of people seem to really hate me. My Tesla stock is crashing, and my personal net worth just dropped by $100 billion dollars.”
The money was in that last line as the SNL audience in Studio 8H went crazy with the reference to the Austin Powers’ villain as Myers held his pinkie up to his closed mouth with Dr. Evil’s signature move.
And who is to say a fourth Austin Powers movie with Elon Musk as the long-lost offspring of Dr. Evil wouldn’t work — executive produced by Lorne Michaels of course.
Tonight’s SNL comes off a week that saw the Amora dominating Oscars, Trump’s excruciating long tirade before a joint session of Congress, and more public praise of Putin by POTUS. Since the March 1 Shane Gillis hosted Saturday Night Live, there’s also been the freezing of US miliary shipments and intelligence sharing with Ukraine. If that wasn’t enough, the past week’s seen stock market plunges, tariff flip-flops by Trump with Canada and Mexico, E.U. & UK defense proclamations, and a very warm Sin City welcome by Ari Emanuel’s pal and UFC boss Dana White to self-declared misogynist and woman beater Andrew Tate on the eve of International Women’s Day.
All of which is to say, three weeks after the almost political satire free SNL50: The Anniversary Special aired, the still early days of Trump 2.0 continues to provide SNL writers with an overload of material to choose from for cold opens and more. Which makes the direction they decided to go all the more obvious. Plus, in a 50th season rich with cameos from superstar past cast members, the more Myers, the better almost everyone can agree.
With her ‘Mayhem’ album just released Friday, Lady Gaga is both host and musical guest on tonight’s 982nd episode of SNL Having debuted on October 3, 2009, tonight is Joker 2 star Gaga’s fifth time as the musical guest on the Michaels created NBC later nighter. For triviaheads, it is also the second time the Grammy winner has been both musical guest and host. Which, if chart topping still means anything, expect some ‘Die with a Smile’ tonight.
