Elon Musk smokes a JOINT live on YouTube: Tesla CEO puffs on marijuana-filled cigar offered to him by podcast host Joe Rogan

Elon Musk happily smoked marijuana while recording a live podcast streamed on YouTube .

The 47-year-old Tesla CEO was speaking about his electric car company on the Joe Rogan Experience when the host Joe Rogan, offered him a joint to smoke .

Musk puffed away on the marijuana-filled cigar after he confessed that running Tesla keeps him up at night. He said: "It's very difficult to keep a car company alive," and admitted to relying on sleeping-drug Ambien.

Stock prices at Tesla are plunging and Musk is expected to face a lawsuit after falsely announcing he was taking the company private and accusing a British hero diver of being a paedophile.

The billionaire has not substantiated his claims at all.

Towards the end of the podcast, Rogan lit a 'cigar' which had been rolled with both tobacco and marijuana - a legal drug in the state of California - and offered it to Musk.

Rogan asked Musk: "You probably can't do this because of stockholders, right?"

Musk reminded Rogan of the drugs legality before taking a draw on the cigar and handing it back.

He confessed: "I'm not a regular smoker of weed. Almost never."

"I don't actually notice any effect. I know a lot of people like weed, and that's fine, however I don't find it's very good for pro-activity."

The two and a half hour long podcast began with the pair discussing his dream of solving traffic problems in Los Angeles by building a tunnel underneath the city.

Musk also discussed his fear of AI as they drank whiskey together.

Musk also spoke about kindness, the week he escalated his baseless attacks on the British caver who helped free a group of Thai boys trapped in a cave and called him a “child rapist”.

The 47-year-old faced a widespread backlash when he first called the diver Vern Unsworth a “pedo” on Twitter

Now Musk, 47, has tripled down on his claims launching an extraordinary attack on the British hero.

In an email to a journalist, the billionaire called Unsworth a “single white guy from England who’s been travelling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years”.

Musk wrote: “I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what's actually going on and stop defending child rapists, you f****** a**hole.

“He's an old, single white guy from England who's been travelling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.”

Musk added: “I f****** hope he sues me.”

The entrepreneur's dispute with Unsworth began back in July when the Thai children were all safely retrieved from the cave where they had been trapped for days.

The Brit had publicly criticised Musk's offer to build a child-sized mini-submarine to help free the trapped children..