White House Chief Labels Musk Drug User, JD Vance A 'Conspiracy Theorist'

Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., was an "avowed" ketamine user, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair, among a series of candid and occasionally critical remarks she made about President Donald Trump's inner circle in interviews with the magazine.

She also labelled Vice President JD Vance a "conspiracy theorist," budget head Russ Vought a "right-wing absolute zealot" and criticised Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the files pertaining to the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The White House quickly looked to downplay the remarks from the interview on Tuesday, with Wiles saying in a social media post that "significant context was disregarded" in what she called "a disingenuously framed hit piece".

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt expressed support for Wiles, saying that Trump "has no greater or more loyal advisor than Susie."

"The entire Administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her," Leavitt said on X.

But the explosive interview threatened to renew questions about the president and his policies and reopen rifts – including the conflict with Musk.

"He is a complete solo actor," Wiles said of Musk in one of a series of interviews conducted over the year. "The challenge with Elon is keeping up with him."

When asked what she thought of Musk for sharing a post on X that claimed public sector workers were responsible for the millions killed under Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, Wiles said: "I think that's when he's microdosing." Wiles conceded, however, that she did not have first-hand knowledge of any drug use.

Musk and spokespeople for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk denied using ketamine following a New York Times report earlier this year that alleged extensive use of that substance and other drugs. He said at the time that he had tried ketamine under a prescription years ago but had not taken it since.

Musk led Trump's Department of Government Efficiency effort to slash the size and scope of the federal government and its workforce, starting by targeting for closure the US Agency for International Development. Those moves stunned Washington and led to the closure of humanitarian programmes.

Wiles said she was "initially aghast" and confronted Musk when he shuttered programs that Trump wanted spared.

"Elon's attitude is you have to get it done fast," Wiles told Vanity Fair. "And so with that attitude, you're going to break some china. But no rational person could think the USAID process was a good one. Nobody."

Musk had a public falling out with the president when he left the administration and threatened to start his own third party. That relationship appeared to be on the mend, with Musk attending a dinner last month for the Saudi crown prince at the White House. Axios reported Tuesday that Musk has started funding Republican congressional campaigns for the 2026 midterms and indicated that he would contribute more, citing people familiar with the situation.

Epstein Files

Wiles in the interview also criticised the attorney general for her handling of the Epstein files. Bondi in February gave binders labelled "The Epstein Files: Phase 1" to a group of conservative influencers, exciting supporters of the president who expected him to deliver on his campaign promise to release documents related to the convicted sex offender.

However, the files Bondi released only contained previously released information. Adding to the controversy, Bondi would later tell Fox News that Epstein's client list was "sitting on my desk" for a review. But the Justice Department and FBI would go on to say that Epstein did not keep a client list and that no more documents would be made public, sparking a backlash from parts of Trump's base.

"First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn't on her desk," Wiles said.

The White House chief of staff told the magazine she had read "the Epstein file", adding that Trump was "in the file". "And we know he's in the file. And he's not in the file doing anything awful," she added.

In November, Trump signed legislation directing the Justice Department to release files pertaining to Epstein.

Wiles also spoke frankly about Vance – a onetime critic of Trump who embraced the president's populist MAGA agenda to catapult himself to the No. 2 spot in the White House. Wiles was asked about the transition from Trump critics to allies that Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had undergone.

"Marco was not the sort of person that would violate his principles. He just won't. And so he had to get there," she said of Rubio.

For Vance, she said, "His conversion came when he was running for the Senate. And I think his conversion was a little bit more, sort of political."

Vance explained his shift to backing Trump to Vanity Fair, saying: "I realised that I actually liked him, I thought he was doing a lot of good things. And I thought that he was fundamentally the right person to save the country."

'Score Settling'

Wiles in the interview also conceded that cases brought by the DOJ against two prominent Trump critics, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey were political retribution, casting it as "score settling" and saying that she had asked the president to limit his planned retaliation to the first three months of his term.

"We have a loose agreement that the score settling will end before the first 90 days are over," she said in a March interview.

In August, however, Wiles would tell the magazine that "I don't think he's on a retribution tour."

"A governing principle for him is, 'I don't want what happened to me to happen to somebody else.' And so people that have done bad things need to get out of the government. In some cases, it may look like retribution. And there may be an element of that from time to time. Who would blame him? Not me," she said.

Wiles also spoke bluntly about the chaotic rollout of Trump's reciprocal tariffs on trading partners in April – a signature economic policy that sparked a violent market reaction and led the president to pause the levies just days later to allow for more negotiations.

"So much thinking out loud is what I would call it," she said, acknowledging that there was "huge disagreement" among Trump's advisers over whether the levies were a good idea.

Wiles said she had enlisted Vance – unsuccessfully – to delay Trump's announcement. She called the process "more painful than I expected" but predicted in April that Trump's approach would ultimately succeed. 

Recent polls show Trump's approval falling and voters expressing new worries about the president's economic policies.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)