SNL gathered tech moguls in one sketch — from Thiel to Jensen Huang

A new episode of Saturday Night Live featured a sketch in which actors simultaneously parodied Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jensen Huang. Host John Mulaney played a CIA agent explaining to the moguls the dangers of spy romances. The sketch referenced Huang's recent departure from Nvidia, the US flight halt, and the Outlook outage.

Otabek YusupovFirst published on tafs uz 16 November 2026 at 01:232 min read

The key facts

A single SNL sketch parodied six tech executives at once, including Jensen Huang, who recently left Nvidia
John Mulaney, playing a CIA agent, explained to the moguls how to recognize a spy showing romantic interest
The sketch referenced the US flight halt on Friday and the global Microsoft Outlook outage on Thursday

All the moguls in one sketch

Awkward and slightly creepy tech executives have already become a recurring theme on Saturday Night Live, but in the new episode the show gave its cast a chance to showcase all of their impressions at once. As TechCrunch reports, a single sketch featured James Austin Johnson as Peter Thiel, Ben Marshall as Sam Altman, Jane Wickline as Dario Amodei, Jeremy Culhane as Elon Musk, and Andrew Dismukes as Mark Zuckerberg. They were eventually joined by Bowen Yang, who recently left the show, appearing as Jensen Huang.

A spy-craft lesson from a CIA agent

The sketch is built around Huang's departure from Nvidia after he admitted to an affair with an alleged Chinese spy — in TechCrunch's assessment, this event could have serious consequences for the tech industry, and for comedians it became an occasion for jokes that rich nerds are easy prey for anyone 'out of their league.' Host John Mulaney played a CIA agent who patiently explains to the executives why they should be wary when an attractive person suddenly shows romantic interest in them. To Altman and Thiel he added: 'I hope this is obvious: even if you're gay, a spy can still deceive you.' Along the way, Mulaney, according to the outlet, wasn't quite sure how to pronounce the names Palantir and Nvidia.

References to recent outages

Johnson's parodic Thiel objected that tech moguls deserve more respect for their contributions to the country and proposed: 'Name one instance where technology has failed us.' That gave Mulaney a chance to remind viewers of the nationwide flight halt across the US on Friday evening — according to TechCrunch, the transportation secretary linked it to a planned equipment upgrade. 'Okay, name another one,' the fictional Thiel replied, which led to a mention of the global Microsoft Outlook outage on Thursday. Asked to give a third example, Mulaney replied: 'No, I'm done naming instances.' The sketch ended with the host's monologue: 'I can't imagine how disorienting this must have been for you — to go from weird bespectacled dorks to gods. Never in the history of our species have people so pale and strange survived and amassed all the wealth and power of the world.'