Elon Musk reveals he has Asperger's syndrome on 'Saturday Night Live'

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday revealed to his audience that he suffers from Asperger's syndrome, "or at least the first to admit it” during his traditional monologue as the Saturday Night Live (SNL) host. It would be the first for the world’s one of the richest entrepreneurs to appear on the show, although in 2015 the former US President Donald Trump barrelled his own version of a monologue and drew protesters to NBC's New York studio, as Taran Killam had later announced. While the then-Presidential candidate, entrepreneur Donald Trump the commercial real estate tycoon, didn’t prove “to be an enjoyable person around,” at studio 8H, [according to Killam’s broadcast to radio 30], the 49-year-old Tesla CEO, SpaceX founder got his audience on the right foot saying: “Sometimes after I say something, I have to say that I mean it.” The AI and Neuralink founder and researcher clarified to his audience, that he had a condition on the autism spectrum.

What is Asperger's syndrome?

UK’s National Autism Society defines Asperger’s as the syndrome “less frequent occurring”. Healthline says that people with ASDs are classified as “high-functioning”. High-functioning autism would imply that such individuals do not project any delayed language skills and cognitive development, typical of many people with ASDs. “Individuals diagnosed with AS have normal or above normal intelligence,” the medical agency blog says, adding that those that have the disorder have an obsessive focus on a narrow topic of interest. “AS cannot be cured,” it stressed. 

Musk told his fans, "Look, I know I sometimes say or post strange things, but that's just how my brain works.”

On a lighter note then, he joked about his Twitter account that dons more than 50 million followers, making his spectators laugh out loud. This would have, although, reminded Musk’s friendly and loyal audience that swarmed to the show despite a heap of controversies, that in 2013, the Canadian film actor host Dan Aykroyd, was also on the spectrum.  The Ghostbuster, while he hosted SNL had also gone public about his disorder. “My symptoms included my obsession with ghosts and law enforcement—I carry around a police badge with me, for example. I became obsessed with Hans Holzer, the greatest ghost hunter ever. That’s when the idea of my film Ghostbusters was born,” he had told the Canadian press in the broadcast. 

Neuralink founder explains his son's name pronunciation

While hosting the US TV show, Tesla CEO decided to reveal his condition, rather a mild form of autism, in a speech that explained his mental and social outlook. "To anyone who's been offended, I just want to say I reinvented electric cars, and I'm sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?” In the very subsequent statement, the tech billionaire informed his audience that his son's name, "X Æ A-12” is pronounced as ‘cat running across keyboard’. He then called his mother Maye to the Studio 8H stage, to give her a surprise. “I'm excited about my mother's day gift. I just hope it's not dogecoin," Mayne said on stage. "It is," Musk said. Sunday also witnesses the price for the crypto dip after recording weeks of an all-time high market value. 

IMAGE: Twitter/@elonmusk/@NBCNFL