As Elon Musk merrily hacks his way through the federal government, sacking officials charged with securing our nuclear weapons and removing young scientists and park rangers from federal employ, some questions have been raised. They concern the absence of merit-based criteria for the discharges, the failure to assess whether the jobs being eliminated may actually be important, and whether Musk and DOGE have any real legal authority for what they’re doing, since the pop-up agency he heads was not created by Congress, as the Constitution appears to require.

There’s another question, though, that I don’t think has received enough attention: Is Musk stoned out of his mind?

One year ago, a report appeared in the media documenting Musk’s heavy use of a range of illegal and mind-altering drugs. This report didn’t come from some left-wing scandal sheet; it was actually a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal. Here’s how the story begins:

Elon Musk and his supporters offer several explanations for his contrarian views, unfiltered speech and provocative antics. They’re an expression of his creativity. Or the result of his mental-health challenges. Or fallout from his stress, or sleep deprivation.

In recent years, some executives and board members at his companies and others close to the billionaire have developed a persistent concern that there is another component driving his behavior: his use of drugs.

The world’s wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it. Musk has previously smoked marijuana in public and has said he has a prescription for the psychedelic-like ketamine.

The story documents the drugs he took at parties, naming specific people (a brother, a board member, friends) with whom he took them. It recounts incidents at work where he appeared to be too wasted to function (including one attempt to address SpaceX employees that attendees termed "nonsensical" and "cringeworthy"). It cites repeated concerns of his companies’ board members about his ability to function on at least a somewhat steady keel, and their concerns that his companies might have to pay a price for his conduct. In particular, members also feared that Musk’s drug use might threaten SpaceX’s ability to do business with the government, as SpaceX is privy to highly classified information about the U.S. spy satellites it sends into orbit. As a subsequent Journal story that ran less than three months ago reported:

[T]he company’s lawyers advised senior executives not to seek a higher security clearance for Musk that would give him access to details about sensitive programs SpaceX is involved in, according to people familiar with the matter.

The reason, these people said, was that Musk would have had to answer questions from the government about his contacts with foreign nationals and drug use previously reported by The Wall Street Journal. In internal discussions, the lawyers and executives posited scenarios in which Musk might inadvertently disclose secrets to foreign officials with whom he regularly speaks, the people said. The Journal reported in October that Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022.

That may explain why Donald Trump hasn’t officially appointed Musk to anything, as he might be required to perjure himself to become an actual administration official. Then again, chatting with Putin while in possession of highly classified U.S. secrets and being hallucinogenically high as a kite probably poses no problem in the Trump White House.

Musk has publicly stated he’s bipolar and takes ketamine to ward off depression. Anyone who follows him on X is compelled to conclude that if Musk isn’t manic, nobody is; just reading him on X can make a person manic.

Among the lawsuits filed against Musk by shareholders in his companies is one still pending that argues his drug use is a threat to Tesla’s business and, thus, the value of its shares. And the Journal’s exposé on Musk’s drug use from last year concluded that "People close to Musk, who is now 52 [he’s since turned 53], said his drug use is ongoing."

Since Musk’s own board members have been concerned about the effects of his drug use on his companies, and since shareholders have gone to court about same, might some members of Congress express concerns about the effects of his drug use on our government and our national security? If our sociopath-in-chief has handed over our government to an oligarch whose mind is careening out of control, we might just have a right to know.

It’d also be nice if The Wall Street Journal, having established all those sources, did a follow-up.