Trump asks aides whether they believe Musk's behaviour could be linked to alleged drug use, source says

US President Donald Trump has asked aides and advisers if they believe Elon Musk's behaviour in recent days could be related to his alleged drug use, privately seeking to understand the tech billionaire's ongoing feud against him while signaling publicly he doesn't care, a source familiar with the conversations told CNN.

Trump said he is not wasting any time thinking about the man who, one week ago, was receiving a giant golden key in the Oval Office and has since lobbed insults toward its occupant. 

He told CNN's Dana Bash in a brief phone call Friday morning that he was "not even thinking about Elon" and wouldn't be speaking to Musk "for a while".

But questions about the spectacularly public break-up have come nonetheless.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday night, Trump said he would "take a look at" cancelling some of Musk's government contracts, a possibility he had floated on Truth Social in the height of their feud, and asserted the country would be fine without them.

"The US can survive without almost anybody – except me," he said, adding that he was joking on the latter point.

Though the source told CNN that Trump had privately inquired about Musk's alleged drug use, the president declined to weigh in on the matter publicly.

"I don't want to comment on his drug use. I don't know – I don't know what his status is," he said on Air Force One, adding that New York Times reporting on the matter "sounded very unfair".

The New York Times reported that Musk was "using drugs far more intensely than previously known", as he rose to prominence in Trump's inner circle in 2024, including "using ketamine often, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs", according to people familiar with the matter. 

In a 2024 interview with Don Lemon, Musk acknowledged he took "a small amount" of ketamine to treat negative moods, under a prescription, but that a heavy workload prevented him from using drugs too much. Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to the Times' request for comment about his drug use. 

CNN had reached out to a Musk representative. When asked about the report, Musk declined to answer and attacked the newspaper instead.

Last week, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, whose wife Katie Miller left a job with the Department of Government Efficiency to work for Musk, told CNN that he had no concerns over the New York Times report that Musk used drugs more extensively than previously known.