One of President Donald Trump’s closest aides has offered an unusually frank window into Elon Musk’s brief but disruptive presence inside the White House, lifting the curtain on internal tensions, clashing management styles, and unease over the rapid dismantling of a major U.S. government agency.

In a series of interviews published Tuesday by Vanity Fair, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles spoke at length about Musk’s time as the de facto leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), his personality, and his role in the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“The challenge with Elon is keeping up with him,” Wiles told the magazine.

She described Musk as an “odd, odd duck,” adding that his unconventional habits — including sleeping in a sleeping bag inside an office building adjacent to the White House — were part of a broader pattern that came with working alongside someone she repeatedly described as a genius operating at extreme speed.

Wiles also made remarks about Musk’s reported drug use that quickly became one of the most contentious aspects of the interview. She referred to Musk as an “avowed ketamine” user and, when asked about a meme he reposted and later deleted — one that compared public sector workers to mass murderers under the dictatorships of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong — she responded: “I think that’s when he’s microdosing.”

Musk has publicly rejected claims that he is currently using ketamine. In June, he wrote on X that he was “NOT taking drugs,” saying he had been prescribed ketamine “a few years ago” but had not taken it since. When asked for comment following the Vanity Fair publication, a spokesperson for Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, responded tersely: “Legacy Media Lies.”

The remarks soon triggered a second round of controversy. In an interview published Monday by The New York Times, Wiles denied having commented on Musk’s drug use at all, saying she “wouldn’t have said it and I wouldn’t know.” The Times reported that journalist Chris Whipple, who conducted the interviews for Vanity Fair, later played a recording for the paper in which Wiles could be heard making the statements.

Beyond Musk’s personal behavior, Wiles also addressed what she described as her initial shock over the dismantling of USAID, one of the most dramatic policy moves associated with Musk’s tenure.

“I was initially aghast,” she told Vanity Fair. She said that her understanding, shared by many who have worked in or studied government, was that USAID “do very good work.” While she acknowledged long-standing concerns about inefficiencies within the agency, Wiles said the execution of its shutdown crossed lines.

“That’s not the way I would do it,” she said, adding that she explicitly told Musk that “you can’t just lock people out of their offices.”

Wiles framed the episode as a clash of philosophies rather than a personal feud. She said Musk’s approach was rooted in urgency and disruption, likening it to the mindset required to build rockets and push technological boundaries.

“Elon’s attitude is you have to get it done fast,” she said. “If you’re an incrementalist, you just won’t get your rocket to the moon.” That mindset, she added, inevitably leads to collateral damage. “With that attitude, you’re going to break some china.”

At the same time, Wiles made clear she did not believe the existing USAID structure was defensible in its entirety.

“No rational person could think the USAID process was a good one. Nobody,” she said, signaling agreement with the goal of reform even as she questioned the method.

Musk ultimately exited the White House in the spring after a falling-out with Trump over the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” While tensions between the two men were widely reported at the time, their relationship has appeared to stabilize in recent months.

Following the publication of the Vanity Fair story, Wiles pushed back publicly. Writing on X on Tuesday morning, she described the article as a “disingenuously framed hit piece,” saying “significant context was disregarded” to create what she called an “overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative” about Trump and his administration.

The White House quickly moved to close ranks around Wiles. Asked about her comments, the administration shared a statement from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt expressing firm support.

“Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has helped President Trump achieve the most successful first 11 months in office of any President in American history,” Leavitt said. “President Trump has no greater or more loyal advisor than Susie. The entire Administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her.”

Taken together, the interviews offer one of the clearest accounts yet of how Musk’s fast-moving, Silicon Valley style collided with the realities of governing, and how even Trump’s most trusted aides struggled to manage the consequences of speed, scale, and disruption at the highest levels of power.

As markets swell with optimism, seasoned bulls are looking at three stalwarts, Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), and Ethereum (ETH), as solid anchors.  But beyond the blue-chips, an emerging presale star, Little Pepe (LILPEPE), is capturing attention for its parabolic potential. With a current presale price of just $0.0022, LILPEPE is being framed by some as the meme-powered underdog that could run toward $1, and bulls are not shy about calling it their moonshot bet.

Ripple (XRP): The Regulatory Milestone and Payments Powerhouse

Ripple’s native token, XRP, has entered a new chapter. In a landmark change, legal battle with U.S. regulators over high fees has ended with Ripple paying a fine of $125 million, which has wiped out one of its biggest overhangs. This resolution prepares the way for new institutional trust and a more obvious mainstream way. When paired with the growing sentiment around tokenization, especially in real-world assets, XRP could become a deep liquidity rail for global finance. Analysts from Standard Chartered have even projected it reaching $5 by 2025, citing both payment use-cases and a strategic push into tokenized finance. On the technical front, some 6-month outlooks place XRP’s bullish target in the $3.20–$4.00 zone, driven by ETF speculation, institutional inflows, and favorable macro trends.  Taken together, XRP’s recent regulatory clarity, real-world utility, and bullish price forecasts make it a strong contender for the next leg up.

Cardano (ADA): PoS Sustainability Meets Long-Term Vision

Bulls still have an interest in Cardano because of its slow, research-oriented strategy. Its PoS consensus is energy-efficient by design and scales in a manner that is sustainable to adopt Web3. Academic rigor combined with peer-reviewed developmental model Layer 1 competition provides an interesting alternative to more rapid, yet less rigorous ecosystems. Although the gains of Cardano in the short term are not as epic as those of meme coins, its long-term runaway is substantial. ADA is starting to be framed as the base standard of a decentralized application, governance, and real-life solutions. For investors who believe in measured, principled growth rather than speculative mania, ADA remains a favorite.

Ethereum (ETH): Programmability and Institutional Reawakening

Ethereum is the foundation of innovation in smart contracts. It is used to run most DeFi, NFTs, and decentralized applications, and its discourse is supported with institutional inertia. In 2025, ETH surpassed its 2021 all-time high, with a market cap approaching $600 billion, a clear sign that capital is returning in force.  Beyond price action, Ethereum’s ecosystem benefits from research on scalability. New models for parallel transaction execution are being explored, which could dramatically increase throughput and lower costs. For bulls, ETH stands as the programmable backplane for Web3, powerful, battle-tested, and primed for the next wave of global adoption.

Little Pepe (LILPEPE): The Sub-$0.0025 Underdog with Meme Energy and Utility

While XRP, ADA, and ETH anchor the core, speculative bulls are zeroing in on a different kind of bet: Little Pepe. Currently in stage 13 of its presale, LILPEPE is priced at $0.0022 and has reportedly raised over $27.5 million so far. The presale has been blazing, with more than 16.7 billion tokens sold.  What makes LILPEPE stand out is not just its cheap entry, but its foundation: rather than being a purely speculative meme token, it is built on its own EVM-compatible Layer 2 blockchain designed for high throughput and near-zero trading fees.  Presale mechanics amplify the bullish case. Since Stage 12 sold out early at $0.0021, Stage 13’s $0.0022 price already reflects strong demand. With a confirmed listing price of $0.003, early buyers are eyeing a 30% return even before secondary trading begins. Given the rapid adoption, the community-driven launch structure, and the meme-native utility, many bulls believe LILPEPE could orbit far beyond its initial valuation.

Conclusion

For those who believe this bull market is not just about speculative noise but a return to serious infrastructure plays, combining these assets could capture both reliability and upside.  Little Pepe, in particular, represents an asymmetric bet: a low-cost presale entry with high-leverage potential, underpinned by a technical roadmap and community energy.

For more information about Little Pepe (LILPEPE) visit the links below:

Website: https://littlepepe.com 

Whitepaper: https://littlepepe.com/whitepaper.pdf

Telegram: https://t.me/littlepepetoken

Twitter/X: https://x.com/littlepepetoken

$777k Giveaway: https://littlepepe.com/777k-giveaway/