By Joseph White

DETROIT (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk dropped a surprise early in his hotly anticipated turn as host of "Saturday Night Live," saying in his monologue that he "is the first person with Asperger's" to host the show, before clowning through skits for the first global livestream of the NBCUniversal comedy show.

Musk, one of the world's richest individuals, opened his monologue by telling an audience in more than 100 countries he is "the first person with Asperger's to host SNL. At least the first to admit it." The billionaire made light of his tendency to speak in a monotone, adding "I'm pretty good at running human in emulation mode."

Asperger syndrome is a condition on the autism spectrum that is associated with difficulty in social interaction, and sometimes is referred to as high functioning autism.

Comedian and Saturday Night Live alumni Dan Aykroyd has spoken in interviews about being diagnosed with a mild form of Asperger's. He hosted Saturday Night Live in 2003.

Many had wondered how Musk would handle himself during a live comedy show. The answer was that he, and the show's writers, sought to soften the rough edges of Musk's public persona. Throughout the show, Musk gently poked fun at himself, including his penchant for provocative tweets and the time he smoked a joint on a podcast.

"To anyone I’ve offended I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars on a rocket ship. Did you think I would be a chill, normal dude?"

Musk's mother, Maye, joined him on stage and the two made a joke about Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency Musk has touted. Cryptocurrency jokes popped up throughout the show. In one sketch, Musk was cast as a bow-tie wearing cryptocurrency expert on the show's Weekend Update segment. Dogecoin and other digital currencies had surged in price ahead of Musk's SNL appearance.

Dogecoin fell during the show and was last down about 12% from late Friday at around $0.53. It hit a record high Thursday above $0.73.

Musk was most convincing playing a version of himself as head of SpaceX dealing with an emergency on a Martian colony. The crisis had a happy ending, until it didn't.

In the end, Musk will keep his day jobs. Still, the "Saturday Night Live" appearance offered plenty of synergies with his real gigs as "technoking" and Chief Executive of Tesla Inc, head of rocket launch company SpaceX and even chief of the Boring Company, a tunnel construction venture.