“Leave Britney alone!” — remember that one? — seems to be the thrust of a judge’s recent ruling in an ongoing legal feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI.
At a Friday hearing in California, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that Musk’s use of ketamine will be off limits to OpenAI’s legal team and its CEO Sam Altman as the case is set to go to trial next month, Bloomberg reports, which will likely save Musk from heaps of further embarrassment.
Musk allegedly has, or had, a heavy ketamine habit. Many had long speculated, including those close to the man himself, that Musk recreationally used the tranquilizer, which is known for its hallucinogenic effects, claims fueled by his own admitting to using the drug under a prescription to treat depression.
For years, major media outlets intensified the scrutiny. In 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, and mushrooms, often at drug-fueled parties. Sources close to him said that his use of ketamine was still ongoing, raising the possibility that Musk could be jeopardizing his companies’ federal contracts with his illegal habit.
But in 2025, the story hit another level. That May, a report from the New York Times claimed Musk was using recreational drugs far more than what was previously known. He reportedly brought a daily pillbox that held about 20 capsules with him wherever he went, stuffed with drugs like Adderall. He was taking ketamine almost every day, according to the reporting, sometimes combining it with other substances of choice — a drug habit so severe that he reportedly confided in others that it was causing bladder issues.
With Musk being a key figure behind Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and at the time of reporting actively involved in gutting the federal government through his pet project DOGE, it became not just Wall Street-flavored tabloid gossip, but a genuine political issue. Grilled by the press about the allegations after his public fallout with Musk, Trump could not rule out the possibility that his billionaire “First Buddy” took drugs while physically in the White House. “I really don’t know,” Trump said. “I hope not.”
As experts noted, a ketamine habit could explain years of increasingly bizarre and erratic behavior from Musk, especially at public gatherings. To wit: acting blasted out of his mind — and conspicuously wearing shades — when he waved a literal chainsaw around on stage at a Conservative Political Action Conference last summer to symbolize his slashing of federal spending, or losing control of his facial muscles in spaced-out fashion before giving Nazi salutes.
In any case, all of this is apparently moot in the upcoming trial, which concerns Musk’s allegation that OpenAI abandoned its roots as a non-profit concerned with pursuing the public good. Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman but left in 2018, reportedly due to beefing with Altman’s leadership. Musk filed the suit in 2024, attempting unsuccessfully to block the company’s restructuring into a for-profit public benefit corporation, which it completed last year. It’s now reportedly seeking to go public, in what is anticipated to be a historic trillion dollar IPO.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers said that OpenAI could not try to discredit Musk on the witness stand by asking him about his alleged ketamine use during negotiations with the company because they would be irrelevant unless OpenAI could provide more evidence on the tranquilizer’s mind-altering effects, per Bloomberg.
The judge, however, said she would allow limited questioning about Musk attending Burning Man, a trippy festival that takes place in the middle of the Nevada desert known for its drug-fueled debauchery. OpenAI lawyers claimed a “lot of significant communications” between Musk and OpenAI happened while he was at Burning Man.
Musk is now seeking as much as $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, which heavily invested in the ChatGPT maker after his departure.
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