“Saturday Night Live” regulars Colin Jost and Michael Che mocked billionaire Elon Musk over his possible plans to buy Twitter — which the Tesla and Space-X co-founder says is all about returning the platform to its promise as a haven for free speech.
Jost and Che took aim at the issue from several angles, arguing everything from it being a poor business decision to it being a thinly-disguised effort to make sure that white people could say “the n-word.”
Your Weekend Update with Colin and Che! pic.twitter.com/R3rAR28Dhc
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) April 17, 2022
“Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for over $40 billion so he can loosen its free speech restrictions,” Che began. “That’s how badly white guys want to use the ‘N-word.'”
“I don’t understand why Elon even wants to own Twitter,” Jost replied, laughing. “It used to be something that seemed important and even fun and now you look at it and it’s confusing and depressing. It’s the Giuliani of apps.”
Jost went on to make a joke a the expense of Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
“Come on, Elon — Elon built electric cars, he’s going to Mars, why is he even involving himself with Twitter?” he asked. “It would be like if the Prince of England gave it all up just to marry an actor from ‘Suits.'”
“Plus, Twitter isn’t even that profitable anymore. It just feels like a bad business decision. And I say that as someone who bought a Staten Island Ferry with Pete [Davidson],” Jost concluded.
Musk made the $43 billion offer after recently becoming Twitter’s largest individual shareholder and turning down a spot on the board. The board responded with a poison pill, as The Daily Wire reported:
The board has adopted a “limited duration shareholder rights plan,” which gives Twitter’s existing shareholders, except Musk, time to purchase additional shares at a discount, Axios reported Friday.
The desired effect is clearly to dilute Musk’s holding in the company, and make the cost of a takeover higher or even prohibitive.
“A poison pill, devised by law firms in the 1980s to protect companies from corporate raiders, essentially lets a takeover target flood the market with new shares or allow existing shareholders other than the bidder to buy them at a discount,” The New York Times explained. “That means anyone trying to acquire the company must negotiate directly with the board.”
The pill will be activated “once any individual or a group of people working together buy 15 percent or more of Twitter’s shares,” the Times noted.
The two also took aim at President Joe Biden during their “Weekend Update” segment, mocking video of the president apparently finishing a speech and turning to shake hands with someone who was not there.
Biden just finished his speech and shook hands with nobody pic.twitter.com/XLndAZcHiD
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) April 14, 2022
“A video has also gone viral of President Biden finishing a speech in North Carolina, then apparently turning to shake hands with an invisible person,” Jost began, then delivering the punchline: “Hey, her name is Kamala.”
After some mumbling from the audience, Jost added, “When was the last time you saw her?”