Elon Musk Calls This Drug The 'Most Concerning:' Is It Marijuana, LSD, Speed, Or Caffeine?

Elon Musk, who in August 2022 weighed in on the impact of different classes of psychoactive drugs, commented on the topic yet again on Friday.

What Happened: The billionaire, in August, reacting to a graphic shared by one of his Twitter followers which showed the results of a study conducted by NASA on the effect of various psychoactive substances on spiders.

The study evaluated the web pattern formed by spiders when fed marijuana, LSD, speed, and caffeine. The results of the study published in 1995 showed that the ones given caffeine and LSD produced the most bizarre and incomplete patterns.

Musk chimed in with his view that the effect produced by caffeine was the most concerning.

The caffeine one is most troubling

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 27, 2022

Caffeine is a natural compound found in beverages such as coffee, tea, and energy drinks and belongs to the class of drugs called methylxanthine. It is considered a cognitive enhancer and increases alertness and attentional performance.

It all started with Musk’s Twitter poll comparing Benadryl spiders and DMT machine elves. He asked his followers which would win. Strangely, the tweet has since then been deleted.

Benadryl, chemically diphenhydramine, is an antihistamine used to relieve symptoms of allergy, hay fever, and the common cold. It is a kind of psychotropic drug that produces drowsiness or sedation. DMT, chemically N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, is a recreational psychedelic drug.

With 11 hours left in the poll, the result was overwhelmingly in favor of the DMT machine elves.

Sharing a screenshot of the initial responses, Musk commented, “It was inevitable.”

Musk Chimes In Yet Again: On Friday, one of Musk's followers shared the same graphic, adding that "The LSD one looks good. The Caffeine seems to be more messed up than the one on Speed." 

"The Marijuana spider got halfway done and gave up," he added.

Replying to his tweet, Musk said, "The caffeine one is most concerning!" He also wondered how much caffeine the spider received.

The caffeine one is most concerning! Like … how much caffeine did that spider get!?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2023

Musk had previously expressed his preference for Diet Coke, especially the soda fountain version served at movie theaters along with “salt & butter popcorn.” He also said he didn’t care even if it lowers life expectancy. A 12-oz can of Diet Coke contains 42 mg of caffeine.

In 2018, Musk shocked everybody by smoking weed in a live-streamed Joe Rogan podcast, although he apologized for it later.

Some parts of the story was originally published on Aug. 27, 2022.

Photo: Created with an image from TED Conference on Flickr