Tesla's Musk smokes marijuana on comedy podcast

Dave Morton, a former chief financial officer at Seagate (STX), had joined Tesla on August 6.

Musk admitted - perhaps in a reference to his recent row after he branded British-born diver Vern Unsworth a "pedo" - that he had made mistakes on Twitter.

The CEO of electric-car maker Tesla and rocket startup SpaceX spent more than two-and-a-half hours Thursday night talking to podcast host Joe Rogan about what it's like inside his head ("a never-ending explosion"), keeping a vehicle company in business ("very difficult") and trying to get governments to regulate artificial intelligence ("nobody listened").

Taking a puff from a joint - which Rogan said was a blend of tobacco and marijuana and is legal in California - Musk said he "almost never" smoked. Musk appeared on "The Joe Rogan Experience" overnight.

Asked about the wisdom of smoking marijuana while he is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for the take private tweet (which many observers suspected was a marijuana joke), Musk told the Guardian by email: "Guardian is the most insufferable newspaper on planet Earth".

His comments came as Musk drew questions of late over his leadership and demeanour.

"I'm not a regular smoker of weed; nearly never", Musk said. "Every now and again I get drawn in and it's not good, you can make some mistakes". Later, Tesla's eccentric CEO tweeted that he was negotiating the go-private deal with buyout firm Silver Lake, investment bank Goldman Sachs and several other firms, including the Saudi Arabian government.

"Maybe it will be successful, maybe it won't", Musk said.

Neuralink aims to link humans to computers without a physical connection by implanting tiny electrodes into the brain.

Musk covered topics in the interview ranging Tesla and SpaceX to what he perceives are the dangers of artificial intelligence.