Elon Musk responds to receiving 'a lot of boos' at Dave Chappelle show: 'A first for me in real life'

Elon Musk at Heidi Klum's 2022 Halloween party
(Image credit: Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

Dave Chappelle's latest comedy show featured a surprise — and, clearly, controversial — guest star.

During the comedian's stand-up show in San Francisco on Sunday, Chappelle unexpectedly brought Twitter CEO Elon Musk on stage, introducing him as "the richest man in the world." Video shared on social media showed Musk being loudly booed as he came on stage, and the boos continued for several minutes, even as Chappelle began speaking.

"Cheers and boos, I see," Chappelle commented before quipping, in a reference to layoffs at Twitter, "It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience." Chappelle also joked that the audience members booing were those who "have terrible seats" and described the boos as the "sound of pending civil unrest."

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Video also showed Musk shout "I'm rich, b---h," a phrase Chappelle encouraged him to say.

In a tweet on Monday, Musk claimed there were "90 percent cheers" compared to "10 percent boos," even though the boos were far more audible in video taken from the show. But Musk acknowledged he received "a lot of boos," which he characterized as being a "first for me in real life (frequent on Twitter)." He added that this suggested he has "offended [San Francisco's] unhinged leftists." Twitter's headquarters is located in San Francisco.

The controversial appearance came on the same day Musk faced backlash for advocating for the prosecution of Dr. Anthony Fauci while mocking gender pronouns by tweeting, "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci."

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.