Kumail Nanjiani said that Elon Musk was “upset” with the opening scene of Silicon Valley.
Nanjiani appeared on an episode of Mike Birbiglia’s podcast Working It Out, where he recalled some of the experiences he had with tech giants while on the show.
“He didn’t like the show,” Nanjiani said of Musk.
The Eternals actor remembered meeting the Tesla CEO, who said the parties he attended were “much cooler” than those depicted on Silicon Valley. The premiere opens with Kid Rock playing at a tech event to a sparse, dead crowd.
“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?'” the Big Sick star said.
The comedian also met Mark Zuckerberg while doing the show, but made a bad impression. He and his costar Martin Starr had presented at the Breakthrough Awards, which were co-founded by Zuckerberg, in 2016.
Thomas Middleditch, T.J. Miller, Martin Starr, and Kumail Nanjiani on ‘Silicon Valley’.
HBO Max
During the ceremony, the Silicon Valley actors called back to a joke from the season 1 finale about giving hand jobs to an entire conference room of people. They retooled that bit to accommodate the number of scientists at the Breakthrough Awards and bombed.
Nanjiani said he doesn’t blame the Facebook founder for disliking him after that moment.
“He was like, ‘What the f— was that?'” Nanjiani said. “And truly in that moment he was right.”
Check out the full episode of Working It Out with Kumail Nanjiani below.
