Dave Chappelle took a break from peddling transphobia over the weekend to pass off dunking on fired Twitter employees and those less privileged than him as “comedy,” all while a crowd hurled boos at Elon Musk.
In footage from a stand-up show that’s been making the rounds, Chappelle is seen welcoming Musk to the stage. Chris Rock was also on the bill for the show, although he does not appear to have been involved with the boos-spurring moment in question at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Sunday night.
After Chappelle introduces Musk as the “richest man in the world” as if simply being rich is an accomplishment or characteristic inherently worth praise, deliciously audible boos are heard. While some in the crowd can also be heard seemingly cheering, the boos are very clearly heard in the footage persisting for quite some time. This, of course, shouldn’t be a surprise given recent (and ongoing) events.
“Weren’t expecting this, were ya?” Musk asks Chappelle at one point. Dave responds by mocking those Musk fired from Twitter following his takeover, stating “it sounds like some of them people you fired are in the audience.”
Chappelle continued in this vein deeper into the footage, saying “all those people that are booing—and I’m just pointing out the obvious—they have terrible seats. It’s all coming from way up there.”
People will contort themselves into pretzels to defend such a remark as a joke or part of the act or whatever but what’s the punchline, exactly? Who’s the target? As the boos continued, Chappelle appeared to grow frustrated and proceeded to ramp up his attempted retorts.
“Listen, whatever,” he tells the audience at one point, as seen in the footage above. “Look, motherfucker. This n***a is not even trying to die on Earth. His whole business model is ‘Fuck Earth, I’m leaving anyway.’”
From there, Chappelle told the crowd to “boo these nuts” as the boos continued for even longer.
Finally, Musk is heard asking Chappelle what to do.
“Don’t say nothing,” Chappelle responds. “It’ll only spoil the moment. Do you hear that sound, Elon? That’s the sound of pending civil unrest. I can’t wait to see which store you decimate next, motherfucker. You shut the fuck up with your boos.”
See more above, including Chappelle’s apparent moment-closing claim of being “your ally.”
In a tweet early Monday, Musk—whose Neuralink is reportedly under federal investigation in connection with alleged Animal Welfare Act violations—appeared to indirectly address the boo-troversy by puking out a nonsensical “woke mind virus” remark. Such rhetoric is right at home with other recent tweets from Musk, who is also fond of mocking a pandemic that claimed the lives of millions of people worldwide.
