Elon Musk And Ted Cruz Joke About Smoking Marijuana To Boost Podcast Views

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and entrepreneur Elon Musk—leader of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—shared a laugh on the senator’s podcast over the idea of boosting viewership by smoking marijuana.

During an episode of the Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast that was posted on Monday, Musk mentioned that he was born 69 days after April 20, or 4/20, the unofficial cannabis holiday.

And while Cruz adamantly opposes marijuana legalization, he played along.

The senator said he asked one of the producers ahead of the interview, “Should I show up and pull out a joint” and ask if the two could beat out the views of a well-known episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, where Musk puffed on a joint.

“But I was pretty sure it might cause a scandal if we smoked pot,” Cruz said.

It proved to be scandalous even before Musk—who owns Telsa, SpaceX and the social media company X—made his splash into federal politics. Because he owned a federally contracted aerospace corporation, NASA launched an investigation into SpaceX’s “workplace safety” and “adherence to a drug-free environment.”

Musk later claimed he never actually inhaled the joint.

In any case, the DOGE official might still be joking about cannabis culture with a prohibitionist, but he hasn’t seemed to lean into reform in his administrative capacity. In fact, he recently said it’s a “great idea” to mandate drug testing of federal employees as he pushes to make massive cuts to government agencies and spending.

Also this month, DOGE touted its cancellation of federal grant funding for a study examining cannabis use risks among LGBTQ+ individuals, non-binary people and heterosexual women.

Cruz’s involvement in the cannabis exchange on his podcast is also notable considering his congressional record on the issue.

Just last year, for example, the senator criticized the Biden administration’s move to reschedule marijuana, citing increases in vehicle injury and fatality rates that he attributed to the legalization of adult-use cannabis.

Cruz has been broadly critical of marijuana legalization, though he’s also said at some points that individual states should have the ability to decide how to regulate cannabis. “I think it ought to be up to the states,” he said during a 2018 debate. “I think Colorado can decide one way. I think Texas can decide another.”

At the same time, the senator has also been critical of recommended federal guidance on alcohol consumption.

During an interview with Newsmax in 2023, the senator drank a beer on camera and said federal health officials “can kiss my ass” if they decided to move forward with a plan to reduce the recommended maximum consumption of alcohol to two drinks per week.

Cruz also laid into a Biden judicial nominee during a 2022 Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, asserting that the judge had been a “partisan advocate for causes,” including “legalizing potent strains of marijuana.”