White House chief of staff Suzy Wells told The New York Times on Tuesday that she did not call Elon Musk an “open ketamine” user in a series of interviews with Vanity Fair magazine.
“It’s ridiculous,” Wiles told The Times. “I wouldn’t say that, and I don’t know.”
But Chris Whipple, who conducted the interview and wrote the two-part profile, provided the New York Times with a recording in which she can be heard making the statement.
“The challenge for Elon is to keep up with him,” Wiles told Whipple. “He is an avowed ketamine addict [user]. He slept in EOB’s sleeping bag [Executive Office Building] during the day. He’s a very strange duck, and I think that’s what genius is. You know, it doesn’t help, but he’s who he is. “
During the interview, Whipple also asked Wiles about Musk’s sharing of a post that falsely claimed Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong were not responsible for the deaths of millions of people.
“I think that’s when he was microdosing,” Wiles said, though she added that she didn’t have “first-hand knowledge.”
In a separate statement released Tuesday in the wake of the Vanity Fair incident, Wiles said, “The article published early this morning was a dishonest hit piece targeting me and the best president, White House staff and Cabinet in history.”
“Important context was ignored, and much of what I and others said about the team and the president was left out of the story,” Wiles said. “After reading it, I believe this was done to paint an extremely confusing and negative narrative about the president and our team.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, Musk had not yet commented on Wiles’ remarks to Vanity Fair.
The powerful tech billionaire and former head of the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) has previously dismissed reports that he uses ketamine, an anesthetic approved for medical use that has become a popular recreational drug due to its dissociative effects.
In response to a New York Times report published in May detailing his alleged use of ketamine, Musk said the newspaper was “lying.”
On May 31, Musk posted on X: “I tried ‘prescription’ ketamine a few years ago and said so on
“Also, just to be clear, I’m not doing drugs!” Musk said.
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