Some men campaign. Elon Musk campaigned on something.As Donald Trump mounted his improbable comeback in 2024, one of his loudest backers wasn’t a politician or a general or a strategist. It was a man who launches rockets, argues with strangers online, and fathers children with the scattershot enthusiasm of a fertility startup. But as The New York Times now lays out in lurid detail, Musk wasn’t just fuelled by ideology. He was fuelled by psychedelics, stimulants, ketamine—and a trail of baby mamas who found themselves at odds with a billionaire living his own late-stage psychedelic Kennedy cosplay.Musk, who donated a staggering $275 million to Trump’s campaign and was given real power inside the administration, wasn’t just backstage at MAGA rallies. He was the show. A one-man demonstration of what happens when power, money, and pharmaceuticals collide in full view of the republic.

Ketamine Nation

Musk’s drug use didn’t begin on the campaign trail—it simply became more public, more intense, and, crucially, more consequential. The Wall Street Journal had already reported in 2023 that some Tesla board members were concerned about his substance use, including Ambien, the sleep aid that Musk once claimed helped him stop “overthinking.” But according to NYT, what followed in 2024–25 was a full-spectrum spiral.Musk was regularly using ketamine, a dissociative anaesthetic with psychedelic effects, and admitted to associates that it was affecting his bladder function—a medically documented side effect of heavy usage. He wasn’t microdosing. He was allegedly taking it so often that some around him feared the lines between prescription and pleasure had fully collapsed.It didn’t stop there. Musk also consumed MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms, particularly at private events across the United States and abroad, according to people who attended them. A photo reviewed by NYT showed a daily pill organiser containing around 20 medications, some marked like Adderall—a stimulant often used to boost alertness and energy. While Musk had publicly claimed his ketamine use was limited to once every two weeks for depression, people around him painted a different picture: one of daily cocktails and blurry boundaries.The FDA allows ketamine under strict medical supervision, but when mixed with MDMA, amphetamines, and jet lag, it produces the very symptoms that began showing up in public: incoherence, impulsiveness, and dissociation. Musk’s erratic campaign appearances weren’t just eccentric—they were red flags waving under spotlights.

The Campaign Trail: Part Techno Messiah, Part Meme Disaster

Elon Musk didn’t just endorse Trump—he shadowed him. He became a rally regular, a hype man with billions in the bank and a toddler on his hip. At one point, he brought his son, X, into the Oval Office, and frequently travelled with the boy to political events. But that, too, led to internal blowback. Grimes (Claire Boucher)—the child’s mother—believed this violated a custody agreement that aimed to keep their children out of the spotlight. She was reportedly alarmed by the exposure, travel, and campaign trail chaos the boy was subjected to.And Grimes wasn’t alone. If Musk’s presidency-by-proxy was chaotic in public, it was carnivalesque in private. Behind the scenes, reports document a tangle of relationships, surrogacies, lawsuits, and secret children—all detonating just as Musk was helping Trump “drain the swamp” with a chainsaw gifted to him on stage by Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei.In February, right-wing commentator Ashley St. Clair went public with the news that she had given birth to Musk’s 14th known child. She says Musk offered $15 million and $100,000 a month to keep the paternity quiet. When she refused, Musk filed for a gag order. The two had celebrated Trump’s election night victory together at Mar-a-Lago, where, she said, she had to pretend she barely knew him.While that drama unfolded, Musk’s other partner, Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, was pregnant with two more of his children via surrogacy—bringing her tally with Musk to four. Zilis, like Grimes, was reportedly unaware of his involvement with St. Clair at the time.Even by Silicon Valley standards, this was no longer a lifestyle. It was a logistics operation.

The Department of Dysfunction

Musk wasn’t just campaigning—he was governing. Or at least trying to.After Trump’s victory, Musk was offered a prominent transition role. He rented a cottage at Mar-a-Lago, joined calls with foreign leaders, and helped design the Department of Government Efficiency—a pseudo-agency tasked with downsizing the federal apparatus. But, according to reports, cabinet officials quickly became alarmed by his behaviour: he insulted members, showed up disoriented, and gave garbled answers in staged interviews.At Trump’s inaugural celebration, Musk raised his hand in what appeared to be a fascist-style gesture and declared that the crowd had “assured the future of civilization.” Neuroscientist Philip Low, once a friend, wrote Musk a scathing email accusing him of giving a Nazi salute, and later went public with his disgust.Then came CPAC. Sunglasses on, posture loose, Musk walked onstage to accept a literal chainsaw. He waved it, declared war on bureaucracy, and gave a disjointed interview that quickly went viral. No one in the room knew what exactly they had witnessed. Online, many suspected drug use. Musk’s team didn’t deny it—because they didn’t respond at all.

Exit Strategy

In May 2025, Musk announced he was stepping down from his government role. He said politics was taking too much time away from his businesses. In truth, it had taken much more: his image, his credibility, and whatever lingering belief there was that genius can be separated from judgement.Musk’s presence on the campaign trail wasn’t just controversial—it was radioactive. He came in as a tech icon and left as a cautionary tale. A man who thought he was engineering the future, but instead turned the most powerful campaign in the world into a live-streamed psychedelic custody battle.He didn’t just join Trump’s revolution. He made it weirder, messier, and memorably ungovernable.