After a Wall Street Journal report this weekend said Elon Musk has been using cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, ketamine, and magic mushrooms, Musk issued non-denials, but top executives of his companies remain worried about the fallout.

It is well-known that Tesla CEO Elon Musk smoked marijuana on camera during a taping of the Joe Rogan podcast in 2018. But a report this weekend in the Wall Street Journal tied Musk to using cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, ketamine, and magic mushrooms, and has obviously created a wee bit of anxiety for top-level board members at Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX.


The report is behind a paywall, but to summarize: it says Musk used many of the above-mentioned drugs at several parties at which all guests had to sign non-disclosure agreements, between 2018 and 2021. It also describes a 2017 all-hands meeting at SpaceX where Musk gave a speech that was reportedly “nonsensical,” “unhinged,” and “cringeworthy,” before SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell had to step in and take over. And of course, Musk has openly admitted to using ketamine.


Musk has since responded to the report. “After that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing,” he posted to Xitter Sunday. “Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol. @WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird 💩.”

Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro told the Journal that Musk is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test,” and added that “there are other false facts” in the Journal article, though he didn’t specify which ones.


Musk further posted Sunday that “Whatever I’m doing, I should obviously keep doing it!” and "If drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time, I would definitely take them!” Those statements certainly sound like non-denials.


But Bloomberg reports that all this drug talk around Musk could be trouble for the Tesla and SpaceX boards of directors. “This will give ammunition to class-action lawyers on behalf of disgruntled shareholders at Tesla, if they can tie evidence of drug use to his actual role as an executive,” Santa Clara University School of Law professor Stephen Diamond told Bloomberg. “The Tesla board has an obligation to discern what’s going on here.”

The real problem could be for SpaceX, which is massively reliant on government contracts, and Musk’s erratic behavior being attributed to drugs would likely present red flags for the federal government. But as for Tesla, its board of directors is now firmly packed with Musk suck-ups, including his own brother.

“A small percentage of investors will sell their stock over the next week and put some pressure on shares,” Deepwater Asset Management managing partner Gene Munster told Bloomberg. “Most investors won’t care, because it falls into the category that if you want to profit from Elon, you have to put up with his controversies.”

Related: Elon Musk to Fleeing Advertisers: 'Go F**k Yourselves' [SFist]

Image: PowerfulJRE via YouTube