Jon Stewart on Monday officially accepted Elon Musk’s offer to appear on “The Daily Show,” though he couldn’t resist a jab at the billionaire’s characterization of him as partisan.
Musk had offered to appear “if the show airs unedited.”
That made it a no-brainer for Stewart.
“After thinking about his offer, I thought, ‘You know, hey, that’s actually how the in-studio interviews normally air. Unedited,’ ” Stewart said. “So, sure. We’d be delighted.”
Then Stewart pointed out another snag as Musk threw shade, claiming on X that he wasn’t trustworthy and is “much more a propagandist than it would seem.”
An interview with Elon Musk? Jon Stewart would be delighted! pic.twitter.com/0Ougl2Hv5E
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) March 4, 2025
But it was the billionaire’s next comment that really raised an eyebrow.
“John is too set in his ways,” Musk tweeted. “He used to be more bipartisan.”
The host was quick to point out the hypocrisy.
“Again. The guy who custom-made his own dark MAGA hat that he wears to opine in the Oval Office with the president who he spent $270 million to elect thinks I’m just too partisan,” Stewart quipped. “I’m really not sure what he thinks bipartisan means, but it’s generally not, ‘I support Donald Trump, and also Germany’s [right-wing] AfD party.”
That led Stewart to issue a caveat of his own, regardless of what Musk decides to do.
“Can we just drop the pretense that you won’t do it because I don’t measure up to the standards of neutral discourse that you demand and display at all times?” Stewart said. “Because quite frankly, that’s bulls–t. You know it, I know it, it’s bulls–t.”
Stewart also updated viewers on the previous week’s injury, displaying a pinprick-sized red dot on his once-bloody finger as he brought out a plastic sippy cup instead of a coffee mug like the one he’d shattered.
“I am not allowed to have big boy mugs anymore,” he said, adding that the network’s “safety committee” had decreed, “No more ceramic for Mr. Stewart.”