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Ex-FBI Agent: Elon Musk’s Drug Habit Made Him an Easy Target for Russian Spies

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Elon Musk's well-documented drug use made him an easy target for Russian secret service agents, a former FBI agent says.

Elon Musk's well-documented drug use made him an easy target for Russian secret service agents, former FBI agent Johnathan Buma told German television broadcaster ZDF during a recently aired documentary.

Buma said there was evidence that both he and fellow billionaire Peter Thiel were targeted by Russian operatives.

"Musk's susceptibility to promiscuous women and drug use, in particular ketamine, and his gravitation towards club life... would have been seen by Russian intelligence service as an entry point for an operative to be sent in after studying their psychological profile and find a way to bump into them, and quickly brought in to their inner circle," Buma told ZDF.

"I'm not allowed to discuss the details of exactly how we obtained this information," he added. "But there's a vast amount of evidence to support this fact."

Buma also corroborated the Wall Street Journal's reporting last year, which found that Musk was in frequent contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The news comes after Musk made a notable shift in 2022 after supplying Ukraine with thousands of SpaceX Starlink terminals. However, not long after, the mercurial CEO became wary of the additional costs his space firm was shouldering, arguing it was "unreasonable" for the company to keep supporting the growing data usage.

He reportedly met with Putin several times thereafter, something Musk has since denied.

Biographer Walter Isaacson's 2023 Musk biography also revealed that he had intentionally hamstrung a Ukrainian attack on Russia's naval fleet near the Crimean coast.

Meanwhile, Musk's ample medicinal and recreational use of ketamine has drawn plenty of attention. Earlier this year, The Atlantic reported that the drug could easily allow anybody to feel like they're in charge of the whole world.

Psychopharmacology researcher Celia Morgan told the magazine at the time that those who frequently use ketamine can have "profound" short- and long-term memory issues and were "distinctly dissociated in their day-to-day existence."

In other words, it could provide Russian agents with a perfect opportunity to get closer to Musk, as Buma suggests.

It's a particularly sensitive subject. Buma was arrested shortly after his interview with ZDF in March. His passport was confiscated and was temporarily released on bail.

To Buma, it's the "greatest failing" of the United States' counterespionage efforts.

Despite his popularity dropping off a cliff due to his embrace of far-right extremist ideals and his work for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Musk maintains plenty of influence in Washington, DC.

Earlier this month, he traveled to the Middle East alongside president Donald Trump, meeting Qatari officials and dozens of CEOs.

The former FBI agent's comments leave plenty of questions unanswered. Does Putin's spy agency have dirt on the mercurial CEO? Could they be blackmailing him?

Put simply, could Musk really be compromised?

Considering the stakes, it's unlikely we'll ever get any clear-cut answers. But given his penchant for partying and using mind-altering drugs, he's certainly not the most difficult target to get close to for foreign operatives.

More on Musk: Elon Musk’s AI Just Went There

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Ex-FBI Agent: Elon Musk's Drug Habit Made Him an Easy Target for Russian Spies

Emails Show Elon Musk Begging for Privacy While Siccing His 200 Million Twitter Followers on Specific Private People He Doesn’t Like

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Elon Musk has repeatedly tried to protect his own privacy at all costs while also showing a shocking disregard for other people's privacy.

Billionaire Elon Musk has demonstrated an extreme level of disregard for other people's privacy. He has a long track record of singling out specific private individuals to siccing his lackeys after them.

But when it comes to his own privacy, it's an entirely different matter.

It's a glaring double standard, with the mercurial CEO repeatedly trying to protect his own privacy at all costs. Case in point, as the New York Times reports, his staff tried to keep the construction of a ludicrously tall fence and gate to his $6 million mansion in Austin, Texas, hidden from the public.

Emails obtained by the newspaper show that Musk's handlers tried to make public meetings allowing neighbors to speak out about his plans private instead. His staff also argued that the city of Austin should exempt him from state and federal public records laws, efforts that ultimately proved futile.

The Zoning and Planning Commission ultimately voted to deny Musk the exceptions he was asking for to turn his mansion into a Fort Knox of billionaire quietude.

Yet while he goes to extreme lengths to keep his own affairs private, Musk's track record of invading other people's privacy — often using his enormous 200 million follower base to make other people's lives miserable — is extensive, to say the least.

In February, the mercurial CEO was accused of publicizing the occupation of the daughter of judge John McConnell to his hundreds of millions of followers, after her father unfroze the Department of Education's federal grants.

Musk has also accused Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Long of being a "disgusting and cruel person," after she reported on how Musk had armed a severely underqualified 25-year-old to infiltrate the US Treasury's payments system earlier this year.

In 2022, Musk took to Twitter to send his lackeys after Duke University professor and automation expert Missy Cummings for allegedly being "extremely biased against Tesla."

Late last year, Musk extensively bullied US International Development Finance Corporation employee Ashley Thomas on X-formerly-Twitter, resulting in major harassment by his followers on the platform.

But his capacity to receive criticism — much of it deserved, considering his actions — has been abysmal.

"It’s really come as quite a shock to me that there is this level of, really, hatred and violence from the Left," Musk whined during a Fox News interview in March after his gutting of the government and embrace of extremist views inspired a major anti-Tesla movement.

"I’ve never done anything harmful," he claimed. "I’ve only done productive things."

"My companies make great products that people love and I’ve never physically hurt anyone," Musk complained in a tweet at the time. "So why the hate and violence against me?"

More on Musk: Elon Musk Is Having Massive Drama With His Mansion's Neighbors

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Emails Show Elon Musk Begging for Privacy While Siccing His 200 Million Twitter Followers on Specific Private People He Doesn't Like

New Law Would Force Elon Musk to Be Drug Tested for His Government Work

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Congressional Democrats want unelected government hatchet man and ketamine enthusiast Elon Musk to be regularly and randomly drug-tested.

Congressional Democrats want unelected government hatchet man and ketamine enthusiast Elon Musk to be regularly and randomly drug-tested.

In a statement announcing the bill, New Jersey Democrat Mikie Sherrill said that the longshot legislation would require Musk and his staffers at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to pass a drug test to retain their status as special government employees.

Along with Musk's attested and problematic drug use — which has already led to him being mandatorily drug tested by the government in the past — one of the multi-hyphenate's top staffers, Alexandra Beynon, used to be head of engineering at Mindbloom, a telehealth service her husband cofounded that prescribes people therapeutic ketamine.

Generally speaking, special government employee status has typically been granted to guest experts and consultants brought on to advise permanent executive branch officials. Under the rules that govern them, special government employees are not allowed access to the White House for more than 130 days per calendar year — and eventually, Musk and his cronies will run out of time on their temporary passes.

The congresswoman added that her bill was inspired, in part, by "Signalgate": the scandal that erupted in the wake of a journalist being accidentally added by a national security advisor to an unsecured Signal group text that discussed Yemen bombing plans.

"Those with access to sensitive information must be thoroughly vetted, clear-eyed, and exercise good judgment," Sherill declared.

Notably, this bill was announced right before Politico's bombshell reporting that Trump has been telling his inner circle that Musk is on his way out of government.

Musk and the White House have both claimed Politico's reporting, which was later corroborated by NBC, is misleading. Still, this is far from the first time the billionaire's substance use has become an issue — first with the Securities and Exchange Commission, then again with NASA, and now with DOGE.

Ironically enough, it's unclear whether ketamine, the powerful sedative that appears to be Musk's drug of choice, is even on federal substance screening panels. Unless he's snorting the other white powder on taxpayer time, it's possible that the bill — which is unlikely to pass because the GOP controls both houses of Congress — wouldn't even have the intended results.

More on Musk and drugs: Video Shows Elon Musk Acting Very Strange at Trump Dinner

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New Law Would Force Elon Musk to Be Drug Tested for His Government Work

Elon Musk’s "Charity" Is Hoarding Money Instead of Giving It to the Needy

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Elon Musk's charity is falling short of the minimum amount of money it is supposed to giveaway by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mr. Miser

The holidays may be approaching, but it appears that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is remaining a total scrooge.

The New York Times reports that the centibillionaire's charity, the Musk Foundation, failed to give away the minimum amount of money it was supposed to last year by a stupendous margin of $421 million.

This continues Musk's pattern of shadily managing his ostensibly philanthropic efforts, such as when he made it seem like he was donating billions of dollars to the United Nations to combat world hunger but instead funneled that money to his own charity.

Now, if Musk doesn't give away that sum by the end of 2024, he will be forced to pay a "sizable penalty" to the Internal Revenue Service, according to NYT's reporting.

Pocket Change

According to the NYT, Musk's charity has increasingly fallen behind on payments despite possessing some $9 billion in assets today. It was $41 million short in 2021, $234 million in 2022, and is now approaching half a billion this year.

He's made up for those shortfalls so far by paying late, but only barely. "The distributions made by the foundation are meeting the bare minimum to avoid penalties," Brian Mittendorf, an accounting professor at the Ohio State University, told the NYT. "It is clear that the organization is not in a hurry to spend its money."

The newspaper notes that other charitable foundations have fallen short of the IRS's minimum by millions of dollars, but that Musk's is an anomaly even among those because of the staggering sum it has to pay and the rate at which that shortfall is increasing.

And there are other shady facets of the organization, the NYT found. It's never hired employees, and its three directors — Musk is one of them — have spent just two hours per week at the foundation over the past three years.

In the cases where it has actually given away money, it has often gone to organizations with close ties to Musk. In 2023, he made a $137 million donation to a nonprofit called The Foundation run by several of Musk's close associates, which operates a private school in Texas close to where several of Musk's businesses are based and where he plans to build a large subdivision for his employees.

Tax Attack

Ultra-wealthy figures have long used philanthropic organizations as a refuge from the treasury department, taking advantage of their generous tax breaks. That's nothing new.

But this dodgy charity management is especially hypocritical behavior from Musk, who has championed increased scrutiny into how government funds are spent and has proposed slashing trillions of dollars in federal expenditures through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which will be formed as part of the incoming Trump administration.

One of his chief targets, unsurprisingly, has been the IRS. Musk recently suggested "deleting" the federal agency, while consistently calling for the hollowing out of others. Even before his DOGE crusade and overt rightward turn, Musk has groused publicly about government tax men and spread obvious falsities about the IRS.

For someone so concerned about scrupulous spending, then, it seems that Musk can be quite underhanded with how he spends his fortune.

More on Musk: Elon Musk Gloats as Trump Announces Billionaires Will Be Exempt From Normal Environmental Rules

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