In February, an awkward Elon Musk stood in the Oval Office, eyes darting toward the ceiling, neck craning at odd angles. He mumbled incoherently next to the President of the United States while his five-year-old son stood inches away. A few weeks earlier, he was onstage —this time at Trump’s inauguration — thrusting his arm skyward in what looked unmistakably like a fascist salute. Then came the chainsaw.
It would be easy to dismiss these episodes as Musk being Musk: eccentric, erratic, a misunderstood genius. But a sprawling investigation by The New York Times reveals something far darker — a man simultaneously at the apex of political influence and teetering at the brink of mental and physical collapse, aided by a daily cocktail of mind-altering drugs, dubious custody arrangements, and a personal life that makes a soap opera look tame.
The Drug-Fueled Rise to the West Wing
As Donald Trump staged his historical comeback with Musk at his side — both figuratively and literally — the billionaire’s private world spun into chaos. Musk poured $277 million into Trump’s campaign and soon became a permanent fixture in the White House. But behind the scenes, he was also consuming ketamine so frequently that it began to erode his bladder, sources told The Times.
That’s not conjecture. Musk himself acknowledged it in private conversations, and The Times confirmed he was regularly taking ketamine, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms. He carried a personalized medication box packed with about 20 pills, including those marked like Adderall — a stimulant prescribed for ADHD but often abused for energy highs.
Publicly, Musk brushed off concerns. “If you’ve used too much ketamine, you can’t really get work done,” he said in a 2024 interview. “And I have a lot of work.” What he didn’t say was that those “small amounts” sometimes happened daily and were often mixed with other substances.
The erratic public behavior followed. In interviews, he stammered and stared into space. At rallies, he bounced around Trump like a hyperactive sidekick. During one particularly jarring Oval Office appearance, he brought along his son, known as X, in defiance of a custody agreement meant to keep the child out of the spotlight.
A ‘Random’ Drug Test — If You Know When It’s Coming
SpaceX, Musk’s crown jewel and one of the U.S. government’s most critical contractors, requires a drug-free workforce by law. Random testing is standard, and all employees, including the company’s CEO, must comply. But “random” seems to mean something different for the world’s richest man.
According to insider reports, Musk received advance notice of these supposedly spontaneous drug screenings. If you’ve ever worked a job with drug testing, you’ll know the workaround: flush your system with water, borrow someone else’s urine, or both. Combine that with the fact that ketamine — the drug Musk appears to favor — isn’t even included in many standard drug panels, and the pieces start to click into place.
Even so, his habit was hard to miss. Friends began to worry. Some urged him to seek treatment. The Wall Street Journal reported that close associates even tried to get him into rehab back in 2022. He refused.
Instead, Musk chose a different therapy: fatherhood.
Pronatalism, Paranoia, and a Parenting Crisis
The tech mogul has fathered at least 14 known children with multiple women, often overlapping relationships, sometimes without telling each partner.
Claire Boucher (a.k.a. Grimes), the mother of three of his children, thought they were exclusive while a surrogate carried their third child. She found out otherwise: Musk had quietly fathered twins with Shivon Zilis, an executive at his brain-implant company, Neuralink. Then he did it again. And again.
By August 2023, Zilis was expecting two more kids via surrogacy.
Grimes was livid. So was Ashley St. Clair, a conservative commentator who gave birth to another of Musk’s children later that year. When she was six months pregnant, Musk finally admitted he was still romantically involved with Zilis.
It didn’t stop there. Musk reportedly told St. Clair he’d had children “around the world,” including with a Japanese pop star. He even offered his sperm to others, “like it was some kind of tech startup perk,” one observer quipped.
He offered St. Clair $15 million and a hefty monthly allowance to stay quiet about the baby. She declined. The lawsuit is ongoing.
Meanwhile, Grimes raised concerns about their son X’s frequent travel with Musk and exposure to stressful political events. The two had agreed — on paper — not to expose their children to public attention. Musk ignored it.
In court, he’s tried to muzzle St. Clair’s public statements, citing “security risks.” Critics see something else: the world’s richest man trying to clean up a mess of his own making.
‘Lasers from Space’ and the Edge of Reality
If this all sounds unhinged, that’s because it is. And Musk knows it.
In text messages reviewed by The Times, Musk wrote, “There are at least half a dozen initiatives of significance to take me down,” and added, “The Biden administration views me as the #2 threat after Trump.” In another text: “Tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix… ‘Lasers’ from space.”
Friends say he’s become increasingly paranoid. In messages to St. Clair, Musk claimed he was in constant danger. “Only the paranoid survive,” he wrote. “I’m #2 after Trump for assassination.”
The public gestures followed suit. After giving a Nazi-style salute at a Trump rally, he dismissed criticism, calling it a “positive gesture.” At CPAC, he swung a chainsaw above his head while shouting about cutting bureaucracy.
One former friend, neuroscientist Philip Low, had enough. “Elon has pushed the boundaries of his bad behavior more and more,” he told The Times, condemning Musk’s salute and describing his behavior as morally repugnant. Public intellectual Sam Harris agreed. In a newsletter, Harris wrote that Musk had “used his social media platform to defame people and promote lies,” and questioned his grasp on reality.
So, What Happens Now?
Musk recently announced he’s stepping back from his political role. Whether that means a break from the chaos or merely the start of another chapter remains unclear.
For now, Musk is still running companies whose products orbit Earth, drive themselves on highways, and are implanted into people’s brains. He still commands a vast audience. And he still operates under a very different set of rules than everyone else — from drug testing to family court.
If this story were fiction, it might be too much: a billionaire tech mogul turned ketamine-fueled political influencer with a baby in every timezone and a chainsaw in hand. But it’s not fiction.
It’s the front page.
And it’s only June.
