Musk says his ketamine use is good for investors: What is this drug and how safe is it?

Elon Musk is known for his erratic behaviour. Hence, when he confessed recently to the use of the psychedelic drug ketamine to treat depression it created quite a frenzy.

The billionaire’s confession a few weeks ago made board members of Tesla and SpaceX, the two companies he helms, uneasy. There were concerns that the use of ketamine could impact his health and the business empire he runs. Now Musk opened up about drug use, claiming that it has helped him lead Telsa.

In an interview with CNN journalist Don Lemon, the EV company CEO said, “From a standpoint of Wall Street, what matters is execution,” he said. “Are you building value for investors? Tesla is worth about as much as the rest of the car industry combined … so from an investor standpoint, if there is something I’m taking, I should keep taking it.”

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Musk claims that he has a prescription for the drug from a “real doctor” and that he “uses a small amount once every other week or something like that”. “There are times when I have sort of a … negative chemical state in my brain, like depression I guess, or depression that’s not linked to any negative news, and ketamine is helpful for getting one out of the negative frame of mind.”

However, he has denied overusing the medication. “If you use too much ketamine, you can’t really get work done. I have a lot of work, I’m typically putting in 16-hour days … so I don’t really have a situation where I can be not mentally acute for an extended period of time,” he told CNN’s Lemon.

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The use of ketamine among the affluent grabbed headlines last December after the death of F.R.I.E.N.D.S actor Matthew Perry. The star, who became famous as Chandler Bing, was found unresponsive in a hot tub in his Los Angeles home on 28 October 2023. An autopsy report later revealed that the incident was linked to the acute effects of ketamine .

What is ketamine?

Ketamine was first synthesised in the early 1960s and secured approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for medical use in the country in 1970. It was first used as a general anaesthetic on the battlefield during the Vietnam War and then was deployed as a tranquiliser for animals, according to a report in the Guardian.

It became a popular emergency anaesthetic but soon was being used illicitly as a recreational drug. People started taking the drug for its “dissociative” quality, which distorts sound and vision and gives hallucinative experiences.

According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), ketamine can make users feel “detached from their pain and environment”. It can make people calm and immobile, act as a pain reliever, and even cause amnesia while under the influence.

In the US, seizures of the drug have increased by 394 per cent in the past five years, the report says.

Why is ketamine used to treat depression?

The aftereffects of ketamine – the calmness, pain relief, and out-of-body experiences – have helped in clinical settings. In recent years, it has been used to treat depression, anxiety, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and other mental ailments.

A study from December 2023, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, revealed that people who got intravenous ketamine at three private ketamine infusion clinics had “significant improvement” in symptoms of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.

According to another research conducted by Columbia University in November 2021, ketamine improved the thinking and reasoning of those who expressed thoughts of killing themselves within 24 hours. The study found that one dose of ketamine not only reduced the severity of depression in people with suicide ideation, many of whom had not responded to other anti-depressants, but also made them feel safer and less likely to harm themselves because it rapidly diminished their suicidal ideation.

Can overuse be dangerous?

There has been growing concern about the use of ketamine, especially after the death of Perry.

An op-ed in an American medical newspaper titled “If ketamine is so safe, what happened to Matthew Perry?”, that while the drug may prove to aid challenging mental health conditions, it still can be dangerous.

According to Smita Das of Stanford University in California and chair of the Council on Addiction Psychiatry at the American Psychiatric Association, clinicians would closely monitor many parameters, such as heart rate and simultaneous medications, when giving ketamine.

“When that sort of monitoring or supervision isn’t in place, then there are a multitude of different things that can happen with external factors – if there are other medical conditions that aren’t accounted for that might put somebody at risk, or there are other substances involved,” Das told MedPage Today. “All these things can contribute to a poor outcome.”

After Perry’s death, the American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists & Practitioners released a statement calling the news “a wake-up call for ketamine practitioners and the wider medical community”.

It is not surprising then that Musk’s use of ketamine has had those with interest in his businesses concerned. However, the Tesla CEO is not alone. Ketamine is not the only drug in question, especially in Silicon Valley , a hub of high-tech business in California.

How popular is the use of ketamine, other drugs?

The use of drugs in Silicon Valley is nothing new.

While Musk insists that he has a prescription for the drug from an “actual” doctor, reports in the media say that some people he works with including directors of the Tesla board sometimes allegedly join him.

In the CNN interview, he said that he doesn’t drink or “know how to do pot”, but in 2018, he famously smoked a joint with American podcaster Joe Rogan.

A report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) last year discussed how micro-dosing drugs like ketamine, LSD and shrooms are popular in Silicon Valley, especially among top executives. “It has become a routine part of doing business”, the report noted.

Founders Fund, a prominent venture capital firm known for its investments in SpaceX and Facebook, has reportedly hosted parties that include psychedelics. Peter Thiel, the founder of the company, has funded a psychedelic therapy start-up and is bankrolling a doping-friendly sports competition, reports Vox.

Many tech leaders take drugs to boost their brain power, focus and creativity.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin reportedly sometimes enjoys magic mushrooms. A longtime director, the venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, left his firm after an internal investigation found he had slept with multiple women in the tech industry and used illegal drugs, the WSJ report says. He was good friends with Musk and they used ecstasy and LSD at parties.

“They don’t want a normal person, a normal company,” Spencer Shulem, CEO of BuildBetter.ai, was quoted as saying by WSJ, disclosing how he uses LSD “while working alone after hours.” “They want something extraordinary. You’re not born extraordinary.”

According to John Markoff, a longtime tech journalist, people have explored drugs in Silicon Valley since its early days. “There are a lot of people who believe you can take a psychedelic and it can make you more creative. That’s been one of the narratives in Silicon Valley for more than a decade,” he told Vox.

While some use it for recreation and business, others like Musk claim it is to treat a condition. The lines appear to be blurred.

With inputs from agencies