President Donald Trump appears indifferent to the alleged drug use of one of his top advisers.
The New York Times reported Friday that Elon Musk was regularly consuming ketamine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, Ambien, Adderall and other drugs while on the campaign trail with Trump. The newspaper said it based its report on private messages it obtained, along with interviews with “more than a dozen people” who know Musk.
It’s unclear whether his drug use changed once he took his place at the helm of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, an initiative that has fired thousands of federal staffers and gutted key agencies under the stated aim of curbing wasteful spending. He officially left his role with DOGE earlier this week.
Trump appeared not to care about this when asked Friday by a reporter if the reported drug use troubled him.
“I’m not troubled by anything with Elon,” he said at the Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “I think he’s fantastic. Did a great job. And, you know, DOGE continues. And by the time he’s finished, we’ll have numbers that’ll knock your socks off.”
“He did a fantastic job,” the president added. “And he didn’t need it, he didn’t need to do it.”
The tech billionaire has called Social Security, one of the most enduring safety nets Americans have ever had, a “Ponzi scheme.” He also danced around onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February wielding a symbolic chainsaw to celebrate his work.
The Times reported that Musk’s drug consumption ramped up around the same time he started joining Trump on the campaign trail last year, and that he regularly traveled with a medication box that held some 20 various pills.
Rather than address the allegations on Friday, Musk attacked the Times’ credibility.
“Is The New York Times — is that the same publication that got a Pulitzer Prize for false reporting on the Russiagate?” he asked. “Is that the same organization? I think it is.”
Musk has previously admitted to taking “a small amount” of ketamine every other week, and was famously shown smoking marijuana on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in 2018.
Musk said Friday that despite his DOGE tenure being over, he hopes to remain Trump’s “friend and an adviser.”
