Elon Musk is taking a break from his busy life leading four companies to take the stage with comedian Dave Chappelle. But Musk's presence was met with derision from thousands of spectators.
Musk was invited on stage during Chappelle's comedy show at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Sunday (11/12/2022) evening. “Ladies and gentlemen, vote for the richest man in the world,” Chappelle said while introducing Musk, as quoted by The Guardian, Tuesday (13/12/2022).
The spectators who were present at the stadium with a capacity of 18,000 people immediately burst into cheers and jeers. The jeers grew louder and lasted for about 10 minutes.
Facing the growing boos, Musk just stood up, waved and walked around the stage holding the microphone. Chappelle also responded to the ridicule with a joke.
"Looks like some of the people you fired were in the audience," Chappelle joked, referring to Musk's recent layoffs on Twitter.
Spectators are prohibited from activating cell phones at Chappelle's show but one person secretly recorded the incident. A video recorded by Twitter user CleoPat48937885 shows Musk performing on stage and immediately went viral.
The video and Twitter account later disappeared, leading some users to accuse Twitter and Musk of censoring the account. But several other accounts immediately re-uploaded the video.
Turns out Twitter can, in fact, be real life. https://t.co/FFpups1yEy pic.twitter.com/41jcZgdDR4
— Steven Goffman (@SteveGoffman) December 12, 2022
Musk, who was getting confused on stage, asked Chappelle what he should say. Chappelle just told Musk not to say anything.
"Don't say anything. You hear that sound, Elon? It's the sound of civil unrest about to happen," Chappelle said.
After the mocking video went viral, Musk immediately clarified via Twitter. In his tweet, the Twitter and Tesla boss assured his followers that the commotion was 90% cheers and 10% ridicule.
But according to writer James Yu who was present at the show, the sound of boos in the stadium far predominated compared to those hailing Musk.
"80% of the people in the stadium booed. 18,000 people. And he withered. Like completely turned into a corn cob," Yu wrote on Twitter.