Elon Musk embarrassed himself with a clumsy and intrusive surprise cameo on a SpaceX livestream on Monday night, leaving his employees visibly uncomfortable. Moments before the successful test launch of SpaceX’s Flight 11, Musk burst onto a pre-launch stream and announced himself with his arms outstretched, causing the hosts to panic as they went off script. “How’s it going, boss? We’re live right now,” the host repeated twice as Musk bumbled his way through awkward small talk and exaggerated gestures with his trademark social ineptitude. “This is going to be the first time I’m going to be standing outside and watching the rocket,” said Musk. “Usually, I’m in mission control. It’s going to be much more visceral.” The two hosts stood stiffly with forced smiles as they were forced to listen to the boss’s unscripted monologue, interjecting with the occasional “yeah” and “awesome,” as he rambled his way through the stream. “Well, good luck and have fun,” they said at the end of the encounter, before silently bidding him off-screen. NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy praised the Starship launch, describing the mission as “Another major step towards landing Americans on the moon’s south pole.”
