Elon Musk Was Reportedly Asked to Go to Rehab

Does he need help?

Executive Dysfunction

Last month, the Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell investigation into SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk's alleged use of illegal drugs including cocaine and MDMA.

Now it's back with a doozy of a followup, including the explosive claim that people close to Musk became so concerned around the winter of 2022 that some of them asked the billionaire to go to rehab.

The newspaper's sources say that one close associate, Oracle cofounder and former Tesla board member Larry Ellison, even asked Musk to come to his Hawaiian island to "dry out from the drugs."

It's not clear from the WSJ's reporting whether Musk took any of those people up on the requests; his erratic behavior, if anything, has escalated since then. But the story is certain to be a headache for all his ventures, ranging 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 United States federal government, which strongly disapproves of illegal drugs.

Timeless Flight

At around the same time that concern was growing, according to the WSJ's reporting, there was an incident in which Elon Musk "consumed a liquid form of ecastasy from a water bottle" at a party in the Hollywood Hills.

In a testament to the strangely coddled way billionaires can end up operating, a source told the newspaper that Musk's security guards "asked people to leave the floor of the house for privacy" before Musk indulged in the drug.

Musk has also reportedly 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's attracted some interest for its potential therapeutic properties, but also carries well-known health risks.

The main other drugs mentioned in the WSJ's latest story were LSD and MDMA, the latter of which is often known as ecstasy. LSD is a potent psychedelic drug that's generally considered relatively safe physically and neurologically, but MDMA is a popular club drug with established health risks, including memory and emotional issues.

Musk's camp didn't respond to the WSJ's latest story, but the billionaire's attorney told the newspaper at the time of its first article that the CEO is "regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test."

The WSJ's latest reporting also examined Musk's relationships with various directors at Tesla, some of whom it reported felt pressured to do drugs with the CEO "because they think refraining could upset the billionaire." Overall, the newspaper's reporting suggests that people around Musk don't feel comfortable asking him tough questions about his lifestyle.

Sometimes, Musk has seemed to bolster 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.

More on Musk: Heavy Metal Drummer Cost Elon Musk $55.8 Billion