When did it become okay for the Wall Street Journal to accuse Elon Musk of using LSD and cocaine without evidence?

On Saturday, apparently.

On Saturday night, The Wall Street Journal stunningly alleged that Elon Musk:

has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world… In 2018, for example, he took multiple tabs of acid at a party he hosted in Los Angeles.

These accusations are deeply serious. People caught with even small amounts of cocaine or LSD can face felony charges. And Musk is not merely the world’s wealthiest person, he’s its most powerful private citizen, thanks to his control of X and the Starlink satellite network.

I read the article with interest, wondering what sources the Journal had relied on to learn Musk “often” used controlled substances. Had someone gone on the record? Had its reporters found a sworn statement, like a deposition from someone who’d provided Musk with drugs? Perhaps they’d seen photos?

2,500 words later, I had my answer on the Journal’s sources: None.

—

(Get your non-libelous journalism here, for 20 cents a day!)

—

That’s right. None. Not even an off-the-record quote.

The closest the article gets to sourcing is this: “people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it.”

The Wall Street Journal - the second-most important newspaper in the United States - had accused Musk of using cocaine and LSD without evidence.

Welcome to journalism in 2024.

To be sure, Musk is not a teetotaler.

He uses cannabis - famously, he smoked on Joe Rogan’s show in 2018. He’s also endorsed the use of ketamine as an antidepressant. I wish Musk wouldn’t do either. (Not that my opinion matters. He’s still mad and not talking to me.)

—

(Not his finest moment. ALT: Joe Rogan can be very convincing!)

—

But LSD and cocaine are very different - legally and culturally - than cannabis, or even ketamine. Cannabis is now essentially legal in the United States. Ketamine, despite its sometimes lethal risks, is openly advertised and prescribed as an antidepressant.

Cocaine and LSD are far less accepted.

Almost 25 percent of American adults said they’d used cannabis in 2022, according to a well-respected federal survey. But only 2 percent said they’d used cocaine, which carries a high risk of overdose and addiction, and fewer than 1 percent said they had used LSD, a powerful psychedilc. Even mainstream drug advocacy groups generally don’t suggest either be legalized.

Kirsten Grind, one of the reporters on the Journal article, understood the seriousness of her allegations:

—

I have no idea whether Musk uses or has used cocaine, LSD, or any other drug. His behavior can be erratic - as it was in late November, when he told advertisers on X to “go fuck yourself.”

But he is also under enormous stress, as I saw firsthand a year ago.

Over the last two decades, Musk has had unfathomable success, shaking up one of the world’s most important industries with Tesla. Yet Tesla is arguably only his third most important company. SpaceX’s dominance in rockets and satellites means that even the American military depends on him, though it wishes it did not:

—

Given the unfathomable stress Musk faces, the Journal is reckless beyond belief in claiming that his public behavior shows he is using psychedelics or any other drugs.

Further, the claim Musk used cocaine is completely impossible to evaluate. As weak as the article’s sourcing is, it does refer to specific instances in which Musk supposedly used LSD and magic mushrooms. For cocaine (and the club drug MDMA, or ecstasy, a methamphetamine derivative), it offers no dates or times at all.

—

—

I cannot imagine the Journal or The New York Times running this piece with this kind of sourcing even a couple of years ago, much less in 2010, the year I left the Times.

But standards at the top papers have plunged across the board. They have fallen even faster for coverage of people such as Musk, who have political views unacceptable to left-leaning newsrooms.

After Saturday’s piece, it’s hard to see how they could go much lower.

Then again, I’ve thought that before.