‘Very disturbing’: Has Elon Musk’s ketamine-induced bladder damage left him permanently incontinent?

Would you want to be the richest person in the world if it meant you’d need to spend the rest of your life in a diaper because you can’t stop wetting your pants? Incredibly, this may well be the fate of Elon Musk, with reports emerging over the weekend that long-time ketamine abuse has seriously damaged his bladder.

The New York Times just published an exposé that alleges Musk’s drug use has spiked over the last few months, with him using “ketamine, magic mushrooms, ecstasy, and Adderall”. One of the reporters who broke the story, Meghan Twohey, told CNN’s Erin Burnett that Musk had admitted that his ketamine abuse has given him bladder issues:

“As he rose to political power last year as he joined Trump on the presidential campaign trail, he was telling people that he was doing so much ketamine that it was causing bladder issues, which is a common effect of chronic use of the drug.”

Burnett replied: “It obviously would be very disturbing to imagine what that would be.” Well, quite.

Twohey reports that Musk is traveling with a “medication box” that she has a photo of, underlining that “our reporting found that not only is he doing so much ketamine that he was telling people it was giving him bladder issues, but that he also appeared to be using many, many prescription drugs.”

Musk has denied he uses ketamine, a position somewhat undermined by him openly admitting to using ketamine to help with “negative chemical states” in his brain during a 2024 interview with Don Lemon:

Don Lemon asks inappropriate question to Elon Musk.

Lemon: “You’ve admitted that you have a ketamine prescription. What’s that for?”

Musk: “It’s pretty private to ask somebody about a medical prescription, you know.”

🎥 @MarioNawfal

pic.twitter.com/LoHuNhP8jb

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) March 18, 2024

Diaper time

So, what could ketamine abuse be doing to Musk’s bladder? Bladder issues are expected in people with high levels of ketamine abuse, which causes a condition known as Ketamine Bladder Syndrome / Ketamine Cystitis. Ketamine abuse damages the cells of the bladder lining, generally leading to overly frequent visits to the bathroom, a constant urge to pee despite the bladder not being full, and lingering dull pain. With sustained use, it results in urinary incontinence, smaller bladder capacity, and erectile dysfunction.

If Musk was suffering severe symptoms, he may need to resort to a “neobladder”, typically used for people with invasive bladder cancer who’ve had their bladder surgically removed. This is made from a section of the patient’s intestine, though it still leads to some incontinence, long-term use of a catheter, and not being aware of when you need to urinate.

None of that sounds much fun. Naturally, given that he’s the richest man in the world, Musk could spend countless millions on developing a new type of artificial bladder that may improve on existing tech. However, given that his self-driving cars frequently veer off the road, his rockets explode, and the ongoing disaster of the Cybertruck, we wouldn’t wish a Musk-designed replacement bladder on our worst enemy.