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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Dominique Hines

‘You weren’t expecting this, were you?’ Elon Musk widely booed at Dave Chappelle show

Elon Musk was roundly booed during his surprise appearance at Dave Chappelle’s sold out comedy show.

The Twitter owner was widely heckled and jeered when brought on stage by comedian Chappelle who was performing at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Sunday.

The unimpressed audience made their feelings so clear with their loud boos it seemingly left the normally outspoken billionaire speechless.

In a video shared on social media, Chappelle surprises the audience by introducing Musk to the stage.

He said: "Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for the richest man in the world."

Musk then appeared on stage energetically waving to the crowd.

Amid the boos, he paced around awkwardly and unsure of what to do before saying: “You weren’t expecting this were you?”

“It sounds like some of those people you fired are in the audience,” Chappelle joked, referring to the reports that Musk sacked several Twitter staff members soon after he took over the social media platform.

Chappelle, like Elon, is no stranger to controversy (Getty Images for ABA)

Chappelle, appearing to defend the Tesla CEO, then said: “Have you noticed one thing? All those people who are booing, and I’m just pointing out the obvious, they have terrible seats.”

“Times like this, I think we’re in a simulation,” Musk went on to say. “Like, how can this be real?”

While the audience laughed, the boos carried on for minutes. The segment then ended with Chappelle’making Musk shout, “I’m rich, bi**h!”

A crowd member tweeted after the event: “Was at the Dave Chapelle show at SF tonight and who comes on but Elon Musk!

Musk, at Heidi Klum's 21st Annual Halloween Party in October, didn’t get the superhero welcome he had hoped for at Chappelle’s show (Getty Images for Heidi Klum)

"A good 80 percent of the stadium boos. 18k people and he withers. Like absolutely turns into a corncob... I actually felt bad for him.”

Musk’s unexpected appearance took place at the end of the show, which was part of one of the biggest comedy tours of the year featuring Chappelle and fellow comedian Chris Rock.

Both Musk and Chappelle have been at the centre of controversy in recent times.

Musk had controversially unblocked Kanye West’s Twitter account last month before recently suspending him for anti-semitic tweets (ES Composite)

The 49-year-old comic has received backlash for several jokes on his Netflix comedy special The Closer being slammed as transphobic.

Musk has been at the centre of a string of controversies, including inviting US president Donald Trump and anti-semite Kanye West back to Twitter after they were suspended for hateful comments by the previous owners.

On Sunday he tweeted: "my pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” in an attack against America’s top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci.

The tweet was seemingly in response to Mr Fauci’s Covid strategy during the pandemic, and mocked the practice of indicating preferred gender pronouns.

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