Surprise: Elon Musk’s Stint in Politics Was Reportedly Fueled by Ketamine, Adderall, Shrooms, and Ecstasy

Elon Musk has done a lot of weird, offensive, disastrous stuff during his time in politics, and now a new report reveals that, kind of unsurprisingly, the richest man in the world was apparently using a cornucopia of drugs when he inserted himself into the political world.Sources told The New York Times that when Musk jumped on the campaign trail last year, he was “using drugs far more intensely than previously known.” Musk, the Times reports, “told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use.” He was also reportedly taking ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and “traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.” While the Times says it’s not clear if Musk was still on drugs when he started running DOGE and wreaking havoc on the federal government, it sure seems like he might have been, given that his tenure involved “erratic behavior, insulting Cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi, and garbling his answers in a staged interview.”

Neither Musk nor his attorney responded to the Times’ request for comment; in the past he has said he was prescribed ketamine to treat depression, and took it roughly every two weeks. He also told his biographer, “I really don’t like doing illegal drugs.” Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk has used LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, and mushrooms, and that some executives at his companies were concerned about his drug use. Musk did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment; his attorney told the outlet he is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test.” (Sources told the Times that while SpaceX, as a government contractor, must remain drug-free and randomly tests its employees, “Musk has received advance warning of the tests, according to people close to the process.”) A lawyer for Musk did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.

Sources familiar with Musk’s activities told the Times that he “had been using ketamine often, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs,” and “the line between medical use and recreation was blurry, troubling some people close to him.” The outlet also reports that Musk “took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms at private gatherings across the United States and in at least one other country, according to those who attended the events.” Around the time the world’s richest man is said to have told people his ketamine intake had led to bladder problems, he endorsed Donald Trump for president; a few months after that, he appeared with the then candidate at a campaign rally for the first time, where he jumped around on the stage.

Musk left the federal government this week after sitting down for a series of interviews in which he complained that DOGE had become “the whipping boy for everything” and called the burning of Teslas in protest of his work in Washington “really uncool.”