Bowen Yang returned to Saturday Night Live for a surprise appearance on November 14, portraying Jensen Huang in a cold open that put some of technology’s most powerful executives through an uncomfortable CIA briefing.
Host John Mulaney played a CIA agent who gathered the tech billionaires to teach them how to recognize an espionage honeytrap, according to Variety’s report on the episode.
Yang makes a late entrance as Huang
The sketch gathered fictionalized versions of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman and Anthropic chief Dario Amodei in a CIA conference room. Mulaney’s character used Venn diagrams to show the difference between a woman who wants to date them and one who is clearly a spy.
Yang arrived near the end of the sketch, introducing himself as “Jensen Hide-Your-Wife Huang.” He joked that when Huang enters a room, the thing about to go down is the S&P 500.
Andrew Dismukes played Zuckerberg, James Austin Johnson portrayed Thiel, Jeremy Culhane appeared as Musk, Ben Marshall played Altman and Jane Wickline portrayed Amodei, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
Cold open draws on Nvidia turmoil and outages
The premise drew on Huang’s November 12 resignation as Nvidia’s chief executive. The Associated Press reported that his departure followed revelations of an affair that raised national security concerns, with finance chief Colette Kress named interim CEO.
Variety reported that Huang admitted a romantic relationship with a woman believed to be a spy for China, and that allegations later surfaced of relationships with two Nvidia employees. Those claims are reported allegations, and the sketch is satire rather than a statement of fact. Eastern Herald has also covered Elon Musk’s backing of calls to reinstate Huang.
The comedy also moved beyond Nvidia. When Johnson’s Thiel asked Mulaney’s character to name one time technology had let people down, the CIA agent pointed to the previous day’s grounding of every plane in America and the Microsoft Outlook outage the day before, Variety reported. Eastern Herald covered the FAA’s lifting of the nationwide ground stop.
Mulaney hosts for a seventh time
The November 14 broadcast marked Mulaney’s seventh time hosting. Phoebe Bridgers served as musical guest for the second time, according to Variety.
Yang left the SNL cast last December, and Saturday’s cameo was his first appearance on the show since his departure, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
