Trump Says He's Not Sure Whether Musk Was Taking Illegal Drugs in the White House
On Monday, Trump responded to the reports about Elon Musk's alleged drug habit — and his answer makes it sound like even he isn't convinced about his friend-turned-foe's sobriety.
Asked if he knew if Musk ever took drugs while physically in the White House, Trump told reporters, "I really don't know. I don't think so."
"I hope not," Trump added.
Brief as they are, the comments are the most that Trump has spoken about the damning reports detailing Musk's outrageous drug habit, which came to light as the pair's relationship rushed towards its climactic implosion last week.
At the end of May, the New York Times reported that Musk's already widely-documented propensity for drugs — which he has previously admitted to taking for medicinal purposes — had spiraled "well beyond occasional use." Musk was allegedly taking so much of the powerful anesthetic ketamine it that it was affecting his bladder.
To facilitate the habit, according to the NYT, Musk carried a medication box stuffed with pills everywhere he went. In all, his impressive pharmaceutical cornucopia included Adderall, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms, which he'd mix together with his ketamine use (cocaine and LSD are somewhere in the rotation as well, according to prior reporting by the Wall Street Journal.)
Trump was first asked about these allegations back in May, when the NYT story came out. At the time, the president said he wasn't aware of Musk's drug habit, adding that he wasn't "troubled by anything with Elon."
"I think he's fantastic," Trump proclaimed, as quoted by the NYT.
Musk was more combative in his denial. At a White House press event earlier that day, with Trump sitting beside him, the world's richest man deflected by disparaging the New York Times and implying that the report was a hoax.
"Let's move on," he fumed.
Since helming the so-called Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to gut the federal government, Musk came to serve as a lightning rod for the public's resentment of the current administration. Under all that pressure, cracks had long begun to show between Musk and Trump's relationship, which boiled over as Musk's drug habit became enshrined in the newspaper of record.
Soon after suddenly announcing that he was ending his time as a "special government employee," Musk broke rank and blasted Trump's newly proposed spending bill. Then in a flurry of back and forths, Trump threatened to cancel Musk's government contracts at SpaceX, to which Musk retaliated by saying he'd cut off NASA's space access, calling for Trump's impeachment, and declaring the president was implicated in the unreleased Epstein files.
The pair haven't spoken since the spat went public, though not for Musk's lack of trying. According to Trump, his former "First Buddy" has repeatedly tried to get in touch and wipe the slate clean.
"I'm not even thinking about Elon," Trump told CNN Friday. "He's got a problem, the poor guy's got a problem."
Now, he's offered the slightest of benedictions.
"Look, I wish him well. You understand," Trump told reporters. "We had a good relationship and I just wish him well. Very well actually."
More on Elon Musk: Elon Musk Shushes His AI Grok as It Says He Stole the Wife of Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff
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