Kumail Nanjiani recently revealed that Elon Musk wasn't a fan of Silicon Valley, the hit series in which the billionaire made a cameo.
In the August 11 episode of Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out podcast, Kumail Nanjiani discussed Elon Musk's reaction to the Season 1, Episode 1 of Silicon Valley titled Minimum Viable Product. The scene opens with Kid Rock performing on stage at a flashy event, but hardly anyone in the crowd is paying attention to him, something Elon didn't like.
“So the first scene of the show it's such a funny opening. It's Kid Rock playing on stage, and then it cuts to the audience, and it's like, at clearly some tech party, there's seven nerdy dudes standing there and nobody's paying attention,” Kumail stated.
According to Kumail, Elon reacted to the pilot episode by saying that his parties were “much cooler” than the one depicted in it.
“Elon was upset. He was like, ‘Well, the parties I go to are much cooler than these parties.’”
The 47-year-old added:
“It was like, ‘Yeah, man. You're one of the richest people in the world. We're like losers on the show. Of course, your parties are better than my parties. What are you talking about?’”
Kumail Nanjiani says he doesn’t “blame” Mark Zuckerberg for “not liking” him
Furthermore, in the podcast, Kumail Nanjiani recalled his hilarious encounter with another tech billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg. In 2016, Kumail and his Silicon Valley co-star Martin Starr were invited to Zuckerberg's science award show, which honors individuals who have made scientific breakthroughs around the world.
"It was actually really really great. It was a great thing. You know, it's it was like sort of trying to be like uh really celebrating these people but in the way that we celebrate like the arts, celebrating science. So they had a bunch of like famous people presenting to people that nobody had ever heard of but who actually made the world better.”
Nanjiani explained that although he and Martin had written some material, they didn't find it funny and instead decided to perform a bit from the show's season 1 finale. In the scene, the Pied Pier team has a detailed conversation about "j*cking off" guys in a conference room.
“It's really like a very long scene of nerdy math guys doing math on the best way to. So Martin and I go up and we're like, ‘What if you had to jerk off everybody in this room?’ And we do the entire bit. It's insane. That we made them put in the teleprompter who many of them don't speak English. I would say, almost none of them knew who we were or what the f**k we were talking about, and me and Martin do the full five-minute scene to absolute silence and got off stage.”
Kumail shared that after the bit got over Zuckerberg came to them and remarked:
“What the f***k was that?”“And truly in that moment he was right,” the Pakistani-American comedian and actor added.
The full conversation between Kumail Nanjiani and Mike Birbiglia is available on Mike’s self-titled YouTube channel.
WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 13: Elon Musk listens as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump addresses a House Republicans Conference meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on November 13, 2024 in Washington, DC. As is tradition with incoming presidents, Trump is traveling to Washington, DC to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House as well as meet with Republican congressmen on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)