Kumail Nanjiani Recalls Elon Musk’s ‘Silicon Valley’ Criticism: “He Didn’t Like The Show”

Six years after Silicon Valley ended its HBO run, at least one tech billionaire is probably happy it’s gone.

Kumail Nanjiani, who starred as programmer Dinesh Chugtai on the comedy series parodying the tech industry, recalled meeting Elon Musk and hearing his critique of the series from Mike Judge, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky.

“He didn’t like the show,” Nanjiani said on the Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out podcast. “He was like, all the parties I go to are much cooler than these parties. I 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.”

Running for six seasons from 2014 to 2019, Silicon Valley stars Thomas Middleditch as programmer Richard Hendricks, inspired by Judge’s experience working in the tech industry of the ’80s. The series took place in present day Silicon Valley, starring TJ Miller, Josh Brener, Martin Starr, Zach Woods and Nanjiani as the employees of Richard’s tech startup Pied Piper.

At a Deadline panel in 2020, Nanjiani said, “Our show came out at the perfect time… when we did the pilot, people weren’t as fascinated with Silicon Valley personalities. We didn’t know a lot of the names back then. While the show was airing, people have become very aware of the people who are running Silicon Valley and how the tech has affected our lives in a negative way.”

Musk has long been a major figure in Silicon Valley with stakes in Tesla, SpaceX and X, among other tech ventures. He’s also been an outspoken comedy critic in recent years.