Elon Musk Denies Reports Former Director Linda Johnson Left Tesla Over His Drug Use: 'No Negativity At All'

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Monday denied allegations that former Tesla director Linda Johnson Rice left the company over his drug use.

What Happened: “She served her term and that was it,” Musk wrote on X about Johnson. “No negativity at all with Linda!”

The CEO was responding to questions on X as to the reason behind Johnson’s exit from the company’s board in 2019. The renewed interest after four years follows a recent media report that pegged Musk’s drug consumption and volatile behavior as the reasons for Johnson not standing for re-election.

According to the report, Rice informally suggested that the board should consider investigating Musk's purported drug use, which allegedly involved substances like ketamine, LSD, cocaine, and ecstasy. However, her concerns were not acted upon, the report added.

Johnson, CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, joined Tesla’s board in July 2017 together with 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch.

Why It’s Important: Musk on Sunday also denied the allegations of drug use put forth by the report and said that he had agreed to undertake three years of random drug testing at the behest of NASA after he smoked weed with Joe Rogan on his podcast in 2018 with no traces of drugs or alcohol found.

The CEO also slammed the media outlet who published the report as ‘not fit to line a parrot cage for bird [droppings].’

Photo courtesy: Thomas Hawk on Flickr

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