Elon Musk: That Booing 'Is a First for Me'

Dave Chapelle brings him up on stage, and much of the crowd lets him have it
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 12, 2022 8:54 AM CST
Updated Dec 12, 2022 1:39 PM CST

(This story has been updated with reaction from Elon Musk.) It could be a pop-culture thought experiment: Would fans of one divisive figure, Dave Chapelle, embrace the even more divisive figure of Elon Musk? As it turns out, not so much. As Gizmodo reports, Chapelle brought Musk up on stage Sunday night in San Francisco, and it seemed that the boo birds trumped those cheering. You can see for yourself via this YouTube video from Gizmodo's Matt Novak. "You weren’t expecting this, were you?" Musk tells Chappelle at one point, per CNBC News. "It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience," Chappelle joked about the jeers, drawing laughter from Musk himself.

At one point, Musk asks, “Dave, what should I say?” and Chapelle responds, "Don’t say nothing. It’ll only spoil the moment." He adds: "Do you hear that sound, Elon? That's the sound of pending civil unrest. I can’t wait to see what store you decimate next." One audience member, Sudowrite founder James Yu, tweeted a recap unflattering to the Twitter CEO: "Was at the Dave Chapelle show at SF tonight and who comes on but Elon Musk! A good 80% of the stadium boos. 18k people. and he withers. Like absolutely turns into a corncob."

Musk appeared to respond directly, if sarcastically, to the above tweet's crowd estimates. "Technically, it was 90% cheers & 10% boos (except during quiet periods), but, still, that’s a lot of boos, which is a first for me in real life (frequent on Twitter)," he tweeted. "It’s almost as if I’ve offended SF’s unhinged leftists … but nahhh." Fortune points out that Twitter is headquartered in San Francisco, where Musk has cut about 50% of the company's workforce. (On Sunday, Musk suggested that Anthony Fauci be prosecuted.)

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