SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk revealed that he had Asperger’s Syndrome while hosting Saturday Night Live (SNL) last week.
The technology entrepreneur brought a lot of cheers and applause from the studio audience for speaking publicly about his situation for the first time, although some of his comments have caused controversy. “I’m really making history tonight as the first person with SNL hosted Asperger’s or at least the first person to admit it,” monologue said during his inaugural episode.
However, several social media users have mentioned that Dan Aykroyd beat him to that acclaim in 2003 while hosting a long-running sketch show. Although once considered a separate and distinct condition, Asperger’s syndrome is now considered part of the autism spectrum and is a label that some people find problematic.
Some of those who identify this condition continue to use the term Asperger’s and others prefer to identify it as being in the autism spectrum. After sharing its name with the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, the condition was first described in the 1940s and differs from other types of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in that it does not usually include learning disabilities or language deficits.
However, people with Asperger’s syndrome may have difficulty interpreting social cues or expressing their emotions. According to the National Autistic Society of the United Kingdom, many people with Asperger feel that following some “intense and highly focused interest” is fundamental to their sense of happiness and well-being. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Dan Aykroyd explained how this aspect of his condition helped him come up with the idea of Ghostbusters.
“I was overwhelmed by Hans Holzer, the biggest ghost hunter of all time. That’s when the idea for my film Ghostbusters was born,” he said. While appearing on SNL, Musk made numerous mentions about his own behaviors, including the tendency to make controversial comments on social behavior. “Look, I know I say or post weird things sometimes but my brain works just like that,” he said.
“To anyone I’ve lost, I just want to say that I’ve reintroduced electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars on a rocket ship. Did you think I’d be a cool, normal sister too?” Chosen to publicly identify as Asperger’s, the CEO of Neuralink, some suggested that the term should be phased out after recent revelations about Hans Asperger’s involvement with the Nazis.
