--- title: "Top Elon Musk Acolyte Running Large MDMA Empire" description: "A close confidante of Elon Musk's who once worked at his DOGE agency is now in control of a pharma company that's poised to sell legal MDMA." date: "2025-08-30" modified: "2025-08-30" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-acolyte-mdma" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "RX and Medicine" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "doge" - "elon musk" - "mdma" - "psychedelics" --- # Top Elon Musk Acolyte Running Large MDMA Empire ![A close confidante of Elon Musk's who once worked at his DOGE agency is now in control of a pharma company that's poised to sell legal MDMA.]() *\Image: Scott Olson / Getty / Futurism\* Since its [initial synthesis]() by the German pharmaceutical company Merck in 1912, the drug 3,4-methylenedioxy-methylamphetamine (MDMA) — better known by the street terms "ecstasy" or "molly" — has lived many lives. From its brief time being tested as a [top-secret truth serum]() in US Army trials to its dual uses as a [therapeutic tool]() and [party drug]() during the 1960s and 70s, the compound's propensity for making users feel profoundly empathic and euphoric. It was [banned by the US government]() in 1985, but that didn't put much of a damper in its recreational use — though it did stall further research until [recent decades](), when scientists again began to look into its potential to [benefit mental health](). And most recently, the [uber-wealthy conformists of Silicon Valley]() have [jumped on the drug]() as well — alongside [ketamine](), [lysergic acid diethylamide]() (LSD), and "magic" [psilocybin mushrooms]() — in hopes of monetizing it. One such billionaire, venture capitalist Antonio Gracias, also happens to be a close consigliere of serial business owner and [psychedelic enthusiast Elon Musk](), for whom he briefly went to work in Washington this year at the White House's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As [*The Guardian* reports](), Gracias has become something of a legal drug kingpin after a chance meeting at Burning Man — where else? — with Rick Doblin, the founder and president of the nonprofit [Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies]() (MAPS), a long-running psychedelics research and advocacy group. Just a few weeks before the desert festival commenced last September, MAPS' for-profit pharmaceutical arm, Lykos Therapeutics, suffered a critical blow when the [FDA denied its application]() to allow the firm to sell MDMA for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), citing inadequate trial data. Having thought federal approval was all but a done deal — and having [raised $100 million]() to that end — [Lykos crumbled](), laid off three-quarters of its staff, and announced that Doblin was stepping down from its board. A few weeks after that upset, Doblin and Gracias met on the playa at a sunrise rave. As the MAPS founder recounted to the *Guardian*, Gracias sidled up to him through the crowd of dirt-stained Burners to tell him point-blank that although what happened with Lykos was not his fault, he should nevertheless fold the company and start anew. Following that encounter, Doblin reached out to the entrepreneur and made him a counteroffer: instead of letting Lykos run into the ground, would Gracias be willing to pay to take it over and run it? By January, Gracias and Christopher Hohn, a billionaire British hedge fund manager Doblin put him in touch with, announced their intention to [take over the would-be drugmaker](). In March, news broke that Gracias was [joining Musk's DOGE efforts]() at the Social Security Administration. (The optics of someone poised to market a Schedule 1 drug working for the federal government was apparently of no issue to either billionaire.) Towards the end of May, when Gracias was still doing his mysterious cost-cutting work at Social Security, [Lykos confirmed]() that foundations controlled by the Musk crony and Honh had raised $50 million in a Series B fundraising round, successfully "recapitalizing" the company. After hiring a new CEO and chief medical officer and restructuring the board — and [eventually leaving DOGE](), and the government, in July — Gracias and his British billionaire associate took over operational control of the company, the *Guardian* details. Thus far, there has been no publicly-acknowledged movement at the FDA about potentially approving Lykos' patent application, or about any further study from the pharma company. But the pair may have a powerful ally still inside the government: health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, whose recent comments about MDMA therapy suggest it might not stay verboten for long. Speaking [to Congress in July](), the [former drug dealer]() and [known antidepressant hater]() claimed that MDMA and LSD therapy have "tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting." "We are working very hard to make sure that happens within 12 months," Kennedy said. Whether Lykos itself will get a second shot at hawking legal molly remains to be seen — but if Gracias schmoozes Trump and Kennedy as well as he did the MAPS founder, it seems possible. **More on DOGE dealers:** [*One of Elon Musk’s DOGE Staffers Used to Sell Ketamine Professionally*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()