Photo via Joe Rogan Experience

Elon Musk smoked what appeared to be his first blunt during a live internet broadcast Thursday night, but couldn’t quite figure out how to inhale the legal cannabis fumes.

The latest guest on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Musk talked to the former Fear Factor host-turned-libertarian media star for three hours, touching on subjects from stockholder expectations to electric jets. At one point during the show, Rogan, a vocal cannabis activist and open user, furnished a pre-rolled blunt and sparked up.

As soon as Musk noticed the smoke, he asked Rogan if he was lighting a joint or a cigar. Once Rogan clarified that it was indeed weed rolled in tobacco leaf, Musk feigned experience, exclaiming “I think I tried one once,” behind a series of quick head nods. After Rogan confirmed that the product was indeed legal to consume in California, Musk reached for the blunt and took a puff.

Then, like a nervous teen trying to fit in with the cool kids in an outdated after school special, Musk exhaled before the weed smoke could touch his lungs, employing President Bill Clinton’s famed anti-inhalation method. Musk then quickly passed the blunt back to Rogan and abstained for the rest of the session.



Elon Musk smoking a blunt for the first time on Joe Rogan's podcast is Internet gold pic.twitter.com/nx8zQ7HlyB — gifdsports (@gifdsports) September 7, 2018



Clips of the unexpected smoke break have quickly gone viral, catching the attention of Musk’s friends and business partners. Before the podcast came to a close, Musk told Rogan that he had already received inquiries about the controversial toke.

“I got text messages from friends asking, ‘What the hell are you doing smoking weed?’” Musk said on air.

However further reactions weren’t quite as innocuous. On Friday morning, Tesla’s Chief Accounting Officer Dave Morton announced his resignation from the firm, stating that “the level of public attention placed on the company, as well as the pace within the company, have exceeded my expectations.” Soon after, Tesla shares dropped by six percent in early trading.

Over the past month, Musk has been embroiled in a series of controversies and media scandals surrounding his attempt to take Tesla private at $420 per share. Announced by tweet days before a much-discussed weekend involving Musk’s romantic partner, the singer Grimes, and her friend, rapper Azealia Banks, the privatization play by social media raised a series of questions about Musk’s mental state, potential drug use, and that particular number’s relation to the cannabis community. In an Instagram post from the August weekend spent at Musk’s residence, Banks claimed the Tesla CEO had taken LSD.

“I waited around all weekend while grimes coddled her boyfriend for being too stupid to know not to go on twitter while on acid,” Banks posted on her feed.

In the aftermath of his controversial announcement, Musk told the New York Times that he was not smoking weed when he posted the “$420” tweet, and that he believes “weed is not helpful for productivity.”

“There’s a reason for the word ‘stoned,’” Musk said. “You just sit there like a stone on weed.”

Musk’s plans to take Tesla private have since been thwarted, and it appears that his anti-cannabis chiding was easily susceptible to Rogan’s light peer pressure. But amidst unceasing scrutiny of the CEO, one wonders if he’ll so casually try kush again.