Elon Musk said no drugs were found in his system in three years of random tests. Experts say the risks of using hard drugs increases with age.
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After The Wall Street Journal published a story Saturday saying that Elon Musk had taken illegal drugs, the billionaire responded in a post on X that he'd had great success leading Tesla and SpaceX and "Whatever I'm doing, I should obviously keep doing it!"
Experts in drug use and addiction told Business Insider, however, that taking some of the specific hard drugs mentioned in the Journal story would be risky for someone of Musk's age, particularly if they have undiagnosed bipolar disorder, as he has previously suggested he does.
The Journal reported that the 52-year-old had taken cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, and magic mushrooms over the years, including at parties, citing unnamed sources who said they'd witnessed his behavior or had knowledge of it. He gained widespread attention for smoking marijuana with Joe Rogan in 2018, and this past August he said he had a prescription for ketamine. The Journal said Musk had exhibited some "volatile" behavior at work that some associates linked to drug use.
The Journal cited unnamed people close to Musk as saying that his drug use was "ongoing," particularly ketamine. The publication reported in June 2023 that he microdoses the drug to treat depression and takes full doses at parties. The Journal told BI on Monday that it stood by its reporting.
The billionaire appeared to post several messages responding to the Journal's story. In an X post on Sunday he said "not even trace quantities" of drugs or alcohol had been found in his system in three years of random drug tests he said he had taken after smoking marijuana on Rogan's podcast in 2018. He wrote in another post on Monday: "If drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time, I would definitely take them!"
Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
Health experts who study substance use told BI that a person of Musk's age using hard drugs would risk developing health issues — including an irregular heartbeat and incontinence — and experiencing psychosis if he had bipolar disorder.
Ian Hamilton, an associate professor in addiction at the University of York in England, told BI that incontinence, bladder problems, and nerve damage were associated with long-term ketamine use, even if taken only in small doses as Musk is thought to do.
Both ketamine use and cocaine use are associated with arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, Dr. Dan G. Blazer, a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University, told BI. Arrhythmia can be fatal or lead to heart problems such as cardiac arrest or heart failure, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
As for the risks associated with Musk's age, Hamilton said that organs become more susceptible to stresses over time, and processes that tend to occur in later life, such as becoming incontinent or developing cardiac problems, could be accelerated by using non-prescription drugs.
"If even some of this is true, then this is potentially a very big problem for Musk," Blazer said, referring to the recent Journal report, because adverse effects, such as changes in cognition, addiction, and the risks of falling, "can sneak up on you if you take drugs over a long period of time and into older age."
Musk has suggested that he has bipolar disorder, replying "yeah" to an X post in 2017 when asked whether he had it. He later wrote, "Maybe not medically tho," suggesting that he has not been given a formal diagnosis.
Blazer said bipolar disorder would concern him more than Musk's age when it came to the topic of drug use. Ketamine is not recommended for people who have a history of psychosis, which can be a symptom of bipolar disorder, because it can make such episodes worse, Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary-care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, wrote for Harvard Health Publishing.
People with bipolar disorder are also more susceptible to addictive behaviors and depression when using drugs, Hamilton said. This is because the brain can become reliant on stimulants such as ketamine and cocaine to mitigate the low feelings that come with the disorder, making it less able to regulate mood.
