Trump Takes Credit for Story About Elon Musk’s Ketamine Addiction

The rumors about Elon Musk’s rampant White House ketamine use have circled back to a source: Donald Trump.

The world’s richest man and ousted Trump adviser was reputed to be a regular pill popper in May, when The New York Times reported that Musk’s drug use went “well beyond occasional use.” He allegedly took so much ketamine that it was affecting his bladder, took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and kept a daily medication box on hand stacked with Adderall, according to photos obtained by the Times. Musk has repeatedly denied the alleged drug use, posting a clean drug test on X two weeks after the story ran.

But that report, per Trump biographer Michael Wolff, was planted by the president himself.

Wolff told The Daily Beast Podcast Wednesday that he came across Trump’s recent braggadocio by catching up with the president’s associates.

“Trump speaks to them, and then they speak to other people,” Wolff said. “Whoever he calls, he says the same thing to everybody. So you know exactly what is on his mind.”

And, in the wake of the billionaire’s vocal rejection of the president’s “big, beautiful bill,” Musk was apparently on Trump’s mind. That was clear by Tuesday, when Trump threatened to deport his largest 2024 campaign financier back to South Africa via a post on Truth Social.

“In one of these phone calls—many of them—he was on about, you know, how many drugs he takes,” Wolff told the Beast. “‘He takes drugs all the time. You know that, don’t you? You know, The New York Times wrote about it. They said, he takes drugs.’”

For whatever reason, Trump had decided it was time to take credit: “‘Actually, we dropped a dime to The New York Times ... on Elon’s drug taking,’” Wolff recalled someone recounting from a recent conversation with the president.

At present, Musk and Trump’s previously buddy-buddy relationship appears to be torn to shreds. Musk is “pissed,” according to Wolff, and the billionaire is acting like it, flaming the administration and Republican lawmakers for pushing what he described as a “pork-filled” tax cut that would only serve to add trillions of dollars to the deficit.

Musk has promised to bankroll a new third party that he’s referred to as “The America Party” should Trump’s spending bill become law, using his inordinate wealth to fund primary opponents to any lawmaker that backtracked on their promises to reduce government spending.

On Wednesday night, a Fox News guest falsely accused Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was wrongfully deported by the Trump administration, of killing Americans.

In an appearance on Fox News @ Night, Monica Paige, White House correspondent for Frontlines, a program by Charlie Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, discussed the GOP spending bill.

Paige urged Republican lawmakers to unify behind the bill, whose fate was then less certain, due to a number of holdouts whom House Speaker Mike Johnson has since reportedly won over.

Paige said, “If you’re going to vote ‘no’ on this, then you’re voting along with Democrats, especially Democrats like Maxine Dexter, who was on the Hill today, dressed in a white robe, who also visited El Salvador to go see Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who killed Americans.”

The accusation against Abrego Garcia, whom Trump deported to an El Salvador prison, where he says he was tortured, due to an “administrative error”—and who, upon his return, now faces federal charges—is a complete fabrication.

Paige apologized within a few hours on X, but, per a report from Mediaite, Gallagher failed to correct her on air, and the error remains unacknowledged by Fox, which did not immediately respond to TNR’s request for comment.

Paige’s apology states:

Tonight during an interview on Fox News, I inadvertently said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia ‘killed Americans.’

What I meant to say was that he has been connected with gang activity that has devastated the lives of many people, and killed an untold number of Americans. He has not been personally linked to the death of anyone even while being accused of gang activity including human trafficking, drug trafficking, and spousal abuse.

I misspoke and I apologize for the mistake.

While the retraction employs familiar MAGA talking points—elevating fiercely disputed accusations against Abrego Garcia, ostensibly to minimize Trump’s harrowing denial of his due process—that’s still more than can be said of Fox, which has thus far been mum on the error.

FOX News @ Night issued a correction in its segment on Thursday night, after this piece was published.

Florida Representative Randy Fine took a moment to remind people that the most important reason to pass the “big, beautiful bill” is to give Donald Trump exactly what he wants.

During a Fox News interview in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the Florida Republican tried to recenter amid lengthy deliberations over the president’s behemoth budget bill that was returned to the House.

“But what we have to understand that the American people are counting on us, and people are losing sight of what this bill does,” Fine said, before proceeding to not explain what the bill does at all.

“Imagine you’re a waitress working right now who’s depending on tips to pay your bills, or you’re an older person whose dependent on Social Security and you don’t want to pay taxes on what you earned for your whole life, or you’re one of the people who’s gonna lose all of the tax breaks they’ve had all of this time, we need to give certainty to the American people,” Fine said.

“But the most important thing is we’ve all committed to support President Trump. He is counting on us to deliver on his signature legislative achievement, and we just have to get the job done.” Fine said.

The most important thing is being transparent with the American public. The benefits of Trump’s No Tax on Tips provision are easily outweighed by massive cuts to essential programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Although Trump has claimed there will be no taxes on Social Security for seniors, that provision isn’t actually in his massive spending and tax bill.

Instead, seniors who are not on Social Security will get a short-term standard deduction boost, but those who do receive Social Security payments will get absolutely nothing. And the tax breaks that would be extended from Trump’s 2017 tax plan are skewed to benefit corporations and the very rich.

President Trump has no idea what’s actually in his sweeping, term-defining budget bill. NOTUS reported on Wednesday that House Republicans had to tell the president that his “big, beautiful bill” was indeed slashing Medicaid.

Trump had a sit-down with the more moderate House Republicans on Wednesday in which he told them that the three things they needed to let be if they wanted to win in 2026 and 2028: Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

“But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one member told the president, according to NOTUS sources.

Trump has never been the wonkiest guy, but the fact that he was seemingly unaware that his “big, beautiful bill” is attacking Medicaid is alarming. Either he’s just completely settled into being a vessel for the Heritage Foundation while their guys spoon-feed him legislation, or his mental acuity needs to be questioned. Or both.

Trump’s budget bill will throw millions off of Medicaid to help fund tax breaks for the richest people in the country. At least 17 million Americans are expected to lose their health insurance by 2034, thanks to changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. It’s not that Trump didn’t understand that, it’s that he didn’t seem to know that was happening at all. To him, this bill is simply a GOP loyalty test with a massive check attached.

With House Republicans poised to pass President Trump’s centerpiece legislation, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is making the most of the customary “magic minute” he’s afforded at the end of floor debate. In a marathon speech that has lasted six hours thus far, the New York Democrat is taking to task supporters of the “big, beautiful bill,” which would deliver historic rollbacks in the social safety net.

Beginning just shy of 5 a.m., and ongoing as of this writing, Jeffries began by observing, “This bill represents the largest cut to health care in American history. It’s an all-out assault on the health care of the American people,” which renders hollow Trump’s January promise to “love and cherish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.”

Later on, Jeffries addressed House Speaker Mike Johnson, saying, “I feel the obligation, Mr. Speaker, to stand on this House floor, and take my sweet time.” As his Democratic colleagues broke into applause, Jeffries continued, “to tell the stories of the American people” as well as “their health care,” “their Medicaid,” “their nutritional assistance,” “veterans,” “farmers,” “children,” “seniors,” “people with disabilities,” and “small businesses.”

Jeffries’s speech is working through a sizable collection of letters from residents of each U.S. state who are worried about losing health care coverage, or otherwise suffering under the legislation, as well as naming the Republican lawmakers who represent those concerned residents.

Shortly before 8 a.m., Jeffries said, “Budgets are moral documents. And in our view, Mr. Speaker, budgets should be designed to lift people up. This reckless Republican budget that we are debating right now … tears people down … and that is why I stand here on the floor of the House of Representatives with my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus, to stand up and push back against it with everything we have.”

The longest “magic minute” was an over eight-hour speech delivered in February 2018 by then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Jeffries, having recently completed his sixth hour of speaking, shows no sign of stopping soon—his effort echoing, to a degree, Senator Cory Booker’s record-breaking 25-hour speech in April lambasting the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

This story was last updated at 11:53 a.m.