Elon Musk said he is “mostly” sober during his late – or in some cases, very early in the morning – posting sessions on his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).
The billionaire Tesla CEO's comment was made in an interview with journalist Don Lemon, during which Musk discussed his use of the drug ketamine. Musk, known for his often erratic behavior, has faced scrutiny following recent reports about his alleged drug use and the potential impact on his companies.
“There are times when I have kind of a… negative chemical state in my brain, like depression, I guess, or depression that's not tied to any negative news, and ketamine is helpful in getting someone out of a negative mood,” Musk Lemon said. Musk added that he has a prescription for the drug from “a real, real doctor” and uses “a small amount once every two weeks or so.”
Although Musk said he doesn't drink and doesn't “know how to smoke weed,” he didn't specify whether he was talking about ketamine or another substance when he said he's “mostly” sober while posting late at night.
Musk has previously posted on X about his prescription use of ketamine, a drug used primarily in hospitals as an anesthetic but which is increasingly being explored as a potential treatment for depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions. Musk's comments offer greater insight into the use of the drug by one of the richest and most powerful people in the world.
Musk denied that he overuses the drug, saying, “if you use too much ketamine, you really can't work. I have a lot of work, I usually work 16 hours a day… so I don't really have a situation where I can't be mentally alert for a long period of time.”
Musk said he believes his depression is genetic and added that he does not believe his ketamine use will affect his companies or his government contracts.
“From Wall Street’s perspective, it’s all about execution,” he said. “Are you building value for investors? Tesla is worth about as much as the rest of the auto industry combined… so from an investor's perspective, if there's something I'm taking, I should keep taking it.”
The wide-ranging 90-minute interview between Musk and Lemon — which sparked a dispute between the two men and resulted in the end of a planned deal for X to pay Lemon to post his new streaming show on the platform — covered much more than usage of Musk's ketamine, including Musk's criticism of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and demand for Tesla's Cybertruck.
Advertisers on X
Musk also discussed the state of the core advertising business at X, which has suffered since the billionaire acquired the company formerly known as Twitter due to a rise in hateful and controversial content on the platform. Musk previously said advertisers who left X over concerns about anti-Semitic content could “f*** off” and accused them of killing the company.
In the interview with Lemon, Musk said that almost all of the company's advertisers have returned, and “it's a very short list of advertisers that are not coming back to the platform, and our advertising revenue is increasing rapidly and our subscription revenue is increasing rapidly and me I feel very optimistic about the future of platform X.” Still, the billionaire seemed uninterested in adjusting X's policies to please advertisers who left the site.
“You can choose where you want your advertising, where you want your advertiser to appear, but you can’t insist on platform-wide censorship,” he said. “If you insist on platform-wide censorship, even where your advertising doesn’t appear, we obviously won’t want you as an advertiser.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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