Elon Musk will soon be adding another unusual title to his résumé: “Saturday Night Live” host. The chief executive of Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technology Corp., or SpaceX, is scheduled to host NBC’s long-running, late-night comedy show on May 8, the show said in a Saturday tweet adorned with three rocket emojis. A businessman is an atypical choice for “SNL” host, but Mr. Musk is an atypical businessman. Tesla recently notified the Securities and Exchange Commission that he was adding the formal title of “Technoking” to his CEO role, and Mr. Musk is famous for his prolific tweets offering proclamations, jokes, and occasional attacks on regulators and short sellers of his stock. While hosting a comedy sketch show will be a departure for Mr. Musk, he has played the showman for years at his companies’ product events, and has enjoyed the entertainment-industry spotlight before, with sometimes unpredictable results. He has appeared multiple times on the podcast of Joe Rogan—the comedian, television host and mixed martial arts commentator—including a September 2018 episode in which a video recording appeared to show Mr. Musk smoking marijuana. Shares in Tesla fell after the event. The Tesla chief also has made a number of film and TV cameos, including “Iron Man 2” and episodes of “The Big Bang Theory,” “South Park” and “The Simpsons.”