Last month, the Wall Street Journal published an explosive investigation into SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s alleged use of illegal drugs such as cocaine and MDMA. Now it’s back with a bang, including the explosive claim that people close to Musk became so concerned in the winter of 2022 that some of them asked the billionaire to go to rehab.
According to the newspaper’s sources, one close associate, Oracle cofounder and former Tesla board member Larry Ellison, even invited Musk to his Hawaiian island to “dry out from drugs.”
It’s unclear whether Elon Musk followed through on any of those requests
According to the WSJ, it’s unclear whether Musk followed through on any of those requests; if anything, his erratic behavior has gotten worse since then. But the story is sure to cause problems for all of his ventures, from Tesla to the social network he renamed X from Twitter—and perhaps especially SpaceX, which is reliant on billions of dollars in contracts from the US federal government, which strongly opposes illegal drugs.
According to the Wall Street Journal, around the same time that concern was growing, Elon Musk “consumed a liquid form of ecastasy from a water bottle” at a party in the Hollywood Hills.
A source told the newspaper that Musk’s security guards “asked people to leave the floor of the house for privacy” before Musk took the drug, demonstrating how strangely coddled billionaires can become.
He is regularly and randomly drug-tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test, according to Musk’s attorney
Musk has also allegedly attended parties with Tesla board member Joe Gebbia, “where Musk took ketamine recreationally through a nasal spray bottle multiple times.” Ketamine is an anesthetic that has sparked some interest due to its potential therapeutic properties, but it also has well-known health risks.
The main other drugs mentioned in the WSJ’s latest story were LSD and MDMA, also known as ecstasy. LSD is a potent psychedelic drug that is generally thought to be physically and neurologically safe, whereas MDMA is a popular club drug with known health risks such as memory and emotional issues.
Musk’s camp did not respond to the WSJ’s most recent story, but the billionaire’s attorney told the newspaper at the time of the first article that the CEO is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test.”
The WSJ’s most recent reporting also looked into Musk’s relationships with various Tesla directors, some of whom were reportedly pressured to do drugs with the CEO “because they think refraining could upset the billionaire.” Overall, the newspaper’s reporting indicates that those around Musk are uncomfortable asking him tough questions about his lifestyle.
Musk has occasionally seemed to support that narrative.
“I can just call for a shareholder vote and get anything done that I want,” he told 60 Minutes of Tesla in a 2018 interview pointed to by the WSJ.
