Elon Musk is still waving around his clean credentials, with the world's richest man keen to downplay the idea that he has a drug problem. Around the time of his explosive exit from politics, there were scandalous claims that President Donald Trump's former 'First Buddy' was known to have taken drugs in the White House.
Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal published pieces claiming that insiders had spoken about Elon Musk's drug taking. The NYT said that Musk was on a cornucopia of drugs while on the campaign trail, with him apparently telling people "he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use." The report is something he's denied.
Similarly, the Wall Street Journal posted a January 2024 piece saying that company executives were concerned about Musk's alleged taking of LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine, and mushrooms. This was followed by a more recent piece on the supposed fallout of the Musk v Trump saga, with Donald Trump apparently calling the tech billionaire a "big-time drug addict” on a call.
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The press have been trying to delve deeper into the allegation, while the POTUS has denied any knowledge of Musk taking drugs.
Musk has admitted to previously taking prescription ketamine, but by trying to put the whole thing to bed, he's set tongues wagging again. Shocking the world and spurring skepticism, Musk shared a clean drug test report with his 221 million followers on X. Alongside many Photoshop experts throwing around allegations that it has been faked, even Musk's own Grok AI chatbot admits it could be fabricated.
Still, Musk has returned to X to issue a challenge to his naysayers at the NYT and WSJ. When someone else suggested that staffers at these outlets should take drug tests and share their results online, Musk cheered: "Great idea. I hereby challenge the NYT and WSJ to take drug tests and publish the results! They won’t, because those hypocrites are guilty as sin."
Of course, journalists at these publications aren't beholden to do anything Musk says, and this isn't the first time he's clashed with them over their views on him.
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The comments were filled with others issuing their own challenge,s as someone else said: "I'd love to see all of Congress take drug tests, also."
Another chimed in saying: "Nobody cares if they are on drugs. They don’t typically hold SCI level security clearance’s where as you do."
A third concluded: "I challenge you to take randomized drug tests, instead of putting monkey p*ss in a cup at whatever time you choose and sending it off to a lab to put on Twitter.”
It seems that by posting his clean drug test, Musk has caused something of a Streisand Effect that's only heightened interest in the pieces from the NYT and WSJ. Whether on drugs or not, the comments suggest that the tech mogul will have to do more than just post a supposedly negative report to silence his critics.