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Elon Musk hit back at the Wall Street Journal on Sunday after a bombshell report by the paper accused the billionaire of using illegal drugs and said executives at his companies were worried by his alleged fondness for cocaine, ecstasy, shrooms, ketamine, and LSD.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk sneered that the Journal was not fit to line a parrot cage for bird [poo emoji], and asserted, after that one puff with [Joe] Rogan, I agreed, at NASAs request, to do 3 years of random drug testing. Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol.

Musks post referenced an incident in 2018 in which he smoked marijuana on Rogans podcast, which led the Pentagon to review his federal security clearance, which was tied to his company SpaceXs work with the U.S. AirForce.

Musks denial that hes regularly getting blasted raises the prospect that his troll-like behavior as the new owner of X/Twitter is just his true personality and not the result of mind-bending substances.

In the Journals Saturday report, the paper claimed that a former director at Tesla was so disgruntled with Musks alleged drug consumption and erratic behavior that she refused to seek reelection to the board. People with knowledge of the situation said that Linda Johnson Rice, who left Tesla in 2019, asked the board to look into the billionaires supposed use of LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms, but was ignored.

The Journal noted that illegal drug use would most likely break federal policies that could put SpaceXs billions of dollars in government contracts in question along with tens of thousands of jobs.

The newspaper said that the first major incident occurred at a SpaceX event in late 2017 when Musk arrived nearly an hour late to an all-hands meeting, slurred his words and blathered for 15 minutes in front of hundreds of employees and executives, and called the companys Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) prototype the Big Fing Rocket.

At Tesla, current directors have asked Musks brother, Kimbal, for help over his conduct, but the outlet said they have been cautious not to explicitly use the word drugs in their requests.

Musk did not respond to The Wall Street Journals request for comment, but his attorney, Alex Spiro, insisted he was regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test.

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Elon Musk Denies Reports of Illegal Drug Use, Says Random Drug Testing Backs Him Up - The Daily Beast

Mr Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro said that the article was reporting "false facts".

Elon Musk has denied allegations of illegal drug use amid reports that Tesla and SpaceX executives are increasingly concerned about his behaviour. He claimed that ''not even trace quantities'' of drugs or alcohol were found in his body over three years of random drug tests, Forbes reported.

The billionaire's response comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that Mr Musk has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms typically at parties, for years.

Mr Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro responded toThe Wall Street Journalreport, and said that the article was reporting "false facts". He added that the tech billionaire agreed to undergo random drug testing for three years after his appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast in 2018, where the 52-year-old was seen smoking marijuana.

In a reply to a post mentioning the WSJ report, Mr. Musk wrote on X, ''After that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA's request, to do 3 years of random drug testing. Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol.''

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Notably, Mr Musk hit the headlines after he smoked weed on Joe Rogan's podcast in 2018. He later downplayed the incident, saying he only took 'one puff'. The incident led the Pentagon to review his federal security clearance, which was tied to his company SpaceX's work with the U.S. Air Force.

He told biographer Walter Isaacson,"SpaceX was aNASAcontractor, and they are big believers in the law," Musk told Isaacson. "So I had to be subjected to random drug tests for a couple of years. Fortunately, I don't like doing illegal drugs.''

However, in the past, the Tesla CEO has admitted to taking ketamine, a dissociative drug to treat depression.According toThe Wall Street Journal,Mr Musk told friends he microdoses the drug, taking small amounts to help manage depression.

Ketamine, an anesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects, is a controlled substance in the US and can only be legally administered by a medical professional.

It is to be noted that any form of illegal drug usage would violate corporate regulations at both SpaceX and Tesla, in addition to breaking federal contracts. It would also cast doubt on Musk's leadership role at the publicly listed Tesla, where the board is tasked with monitoring management on behalf of shareholders.

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''Not Even Trace Quantities'': What Elon Musk Said On Drug Use Claims By Tesla, SpaceX - NDTV

SpaceX is facing a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that alleges the company illegally fired employees for writing an open letter that criticized CEO Elon Musk.

In the complaint filed on Wednesday, the NLRB accuses SpaceX of interrogating workers about their involvement with the letter and told employees not to discuss these interviews. NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado told Reuters that SpaceX violated the federal right of workers to collectively push for better conditions.

The labor agency claims SpaceX created an impression of surveillance by reading and showing screenshots of messages between employees, adding that the company attempted to prevent employees from handing out the open letter. SpaceX also allegedly invited employees to quit and threatened discharge if they participated in organized activities.

The NLRB is asking SpaceX to post a notice about employee rights for 120 days and wants the company to write letters of apology to each of the employees it fired, among other things. A hearing with an NLRB administrative law judge (ALJ) is scheduled for March 5th, 2024, provided that SpaceX doesnt try to settle the charges. Whatever decision the judge makes can be appealed to the board and taken to the federal appeals court.

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SpaceX accused of illegally firing employees who criticized Elon Musk - The Verge

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For someone who despises the advertising industry, Elon Musk has a way with viral slogans. At a New York Times event on November 29th the worlds richest man was asked how he felt about firms pulling ads from X, the social network he bought last year when it was known as Twitter. If somebodys going to try to blackmail me, he replied, go fuck yourself. The GFY approach, as he dubbed it, may come naturally to billionaires. But it is bold for a company that last year made 90% or so of its revenue from ads. Those that have pulled ads from X include Apple and Disney, whose presence Mr Musk previously cited as evidence that X was a safe space for brands.

Advertisers are worried about unsavoury content on the platform. Since Mr Musk fired 80% of Xs staff, including many moderators, more bile seems to be leaking through the filters. Last month Media Matters for America, a watchdog, reported that ads for brands such as IBM had appeared alongside posts praising Adolf Hitler (X disputes this and is suing Media Matters).

Social networks are freer than mainstream media to tell advertisers to get lost. Whereas a typical TV network in America gets most of its ad revenue from fewer than 100 big clients, social networks can have millions of small ones. A year ago the largest, Facebook, was getting 45% of its domestic sales from its 100 biggest advertisers, reckons Sensor Tower, a research firm; a boycott against it in 2020 by more than 600 firms, including giants like Unilever and Starbucks, had little effect on sales. But X lacks Facebooks sophisticated ad-targeting apparatus, and relies on campaigns by big brands. In October 2022, when Mr Musk bought Twitter, its 100 top clients accounted for 70% of American ad sales.

Half of them have since left X, Sensor Tower says. On December 1st Walmart said it had gone, owing to its ads poor results on X. The impact has been severe. In September Mr Musk said that Xs American ad business was down by 60%. Advertisers in other regions may be less bothered by the culture wars that Mr Musk is fighting. But X is unusually reliant on America. Whereas Meta, Facebooks parent company, makes most of its money abroad, 56% of Twitters revenue came from America before Mr Musk bought it. Even before GFY, Insider Intelligence, another research firm, expected Xs worldwide ad sales to fall by more than half this year (see chart).

Mr Musks fans insist being rude to air-kissing admen and woke brands delights Xs everyman users. X still has nearly five times as many as Threads, a newish rival from Meta. Yet Sensor Tower reports that the X app is being downloaded less often than a year ago, and estimates that it has lost 15% of monthly users.

Some observers put this down to a purge of bots and fake users. Still, X must monetise the users it has in new ways to make up for the declining ad dollars. One idea is X Premium, which offers extra features and fewer ads for between $3 and $16 a month. So far there seem to be few takers: Sensor Tower estimates that X has sold $60m-worth of subscriptions in the past year, equivalent to 1% of pre-Musk annual ad sales. Mr Musk has talked of turning X into an everything app, handling payments, calls and more. But even optimists concede this would take years.

Until then, the aim is to replace the departing big advertisers with an army of little ones. X is said to be working on its ad technology for smaller firms, eyeing a Facebook-like long tail of clients. There is no time to lose. Further drops in ad sales could necessitate a bail-out from investors, or from Mr Musk himself. Xs employees have their work cut out to attract advertisers faster than their boss repels them.

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Elon Musk's X is especially vulnerable to an ad boycott - The Economist

Elon Musk celebrated his 44th birthday in July 2015 at a three-day party thrown by his wife at a California wine country resort dotted with cabins. It was family and friends only, with children racing around the upscale property in Napa Valley.

This was years before Twitter became X and Tesla had a profitable year. Mr. Musk and his wife, Talulah Riley an actress who played a beautiful but dangerous robot on HBOs science fiction series Westworld were a year from throwing in the towel on their second marriage. Larry Page, a party guest, was still the chief executive of Google. And artificial intelligence had pierced the public consciousness only a few years before, when it was used to identify cats on YouTube with 16 percent accuracy.

A.I. was the big topic of conversation when Mr. Musk and Mr. Page sat down near a firepit beside a swimming pool after dinner the first night. The two billionaires had been friends for more than a decade, and Mr. Musk sometimes joked that he occasionally crashed on Mr. Pages sofa after a night playing video games.

But the tone that clear night soon turned contentious as the two debated whether artificial intelligence would ultimately elevate humanity or destroy it.

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How Elon Musk and Larry Pages AI Debate Led to OpenAI and an Industry Boom - The New York Times