Go the F**k To Therapy

An open letter to Elon Musk -- and everyone else who needs to hear it.

Photo by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

Dear Elon Musk,

Hi there, long-time observer, first time writer. How are you doing? No, seriously, how are you doing? Cause you seem in a bit of a funk right now.

To be fair, you’re not the only one. Other members of Donald Trump’s team are clearly having issues with their feelings right now as well. Here is FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, for example, on Fox News, coming very close to losing it:

Then there is you, Elon. As of today you have kinda-sorta-but-not-really departed from government service as of May 30th. On your way out, you have given a variety of interviews in which, to be perfectly honest, you’ve been a bit whiny. You keep complaining about how your time in DC has played out, mystified by all the anger directed at you. FFS, at your farewell with Trump in the Oval Office you were sporting a black eye.¹

Now I’m guessing that part of the reason for your black mood might have to do with the New York Times’ Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey coverage of how you handled himself over the past eight months or so. It sure sounds like you took a lot of drugs!

Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.

It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.

At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews….

Last year, as he jumped into the political arena, some people who knew him worried about his frequent drug use, mood swings and fixation on having more children….

Mr. Musk has described some of his mental health issues in interviews and on social media, saying in one post that he has felt “great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress.” He has denounced traditional therapy and antidepressants.

That last sentence is certainly accurate, Elon. Last year you literally tweeted, “Put ‘Never Went to Therapy’ on my gravestone” and that’s not the first time you’ve expressed that sentiment. And yet your insistence on self-medication seems to have left you in a galactically toxic funk.

After seeing the carnage that you have wreaked upon the United States over the past few month, I would like to offer some advice. In the spirit of Adam Mansbach and in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson:

GO THE FUCK TO THERAPY.²

Seriously, dude, go to therapy. It is so much less painful and less destructive to go to therapy and process your pain than repressing bad feelings until they surface in unproductive ways — or, worse, letting them manifest themselves by acting out towards friends, loved ones, and fellow citizens.

Just looking at your public interviews and CPAC appearances, I have never met anyone more in need of therapy in their life. And I am an academic — do you have any idea how many of my colleagues need therapy as well?! But at the worst they can make life difficult for their students and their family. You killed an estimated 300,000 people, mostly children, in your first month working for the federal government. The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg wrote these paragraphs about you:

If there were justice in the world, Musk would never be able to repair his reputation, at least not without devoting the bulk of his fortune to easing the misery he’s engendered. Musk’s sojourn in government has revealed severe flaws in his character — a blithe, dehumanizing cruelty, and a deadly incuriosity. This should shape how he’s seen for the rest of his public life.

Musk sometimes refers to people he holds in contempt as “NPCs,” videogame speak for characters who aren’t controlled by players and thus have no agency. More than just an insult, the term, I think, reveals something about his worldview. He either doesn’t view most other people as entirely real or doesn’t see the point of treating them as such. As he told Joe Rogan this year, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” referring to the emotion as a “bug” in our system.

Clearly, you need some therapy!

Look, I get it. You have latched onto some antiquated notions of masculinity. You are worried that if you process your feelings, it will somehow make you less of a man. You crave the kind of relaxed heterosexual hang that SNL identified a year ago:

But to paraphrase Dean Vernon Wormer: toxic, high, and stupid is no way to go through life, son. Talk about your fears and feeling. You will feel better, I promise. Just go the fuck to therapy — for the sake of your many children, your many employees, and the Americans you have fucked over with your hugely destructive time in government.

Seriously, go to therapy.

Have a nice weekend!

Dan

1. Frankly, this is way too on the nose for 2025’s screenwriters and makes me wonder if they’re leaning on AI script doctoring too much.

2. If that sentence wasn’t loud enough, listen to Leslie Jones make this point with more, um, emphasis.