Elon Musk Doesn’t Care If Drinking Gallons Of Diet Coke ‘Shaves Life Off’

Elon Musk has said he is happy to keep drinking ‘gallons’ of Diet Coke and Coke Zero even if it ‘shaves a bit of life off’, telling followers on X in August 2023 that the zero‑sugar drinks are ‘awesome’ and that the trade‑off is ‘worth it’. The comments, resurfacing online this week, were made in a thread about Coca‑Cola’s role in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway portfolio and have reignited questions about how relaxed one of the world’s most influential tech figures is about his own health.

For context, the remark did not come in a TV interview or a carefully managed keynote. Musk was replying in real time to users dissecting Buffett’s long-standing Coca‑Cola stake, one of the most famous positions on Wall Street. Berkshire Hathaway has held roughly 400 million Coca‑Cola shares since 1988, a holding that has generated hundreds of millions of dollars a year in dividends and become a case study in Buffett’s buy‑and‑hold philosophy.

As the X discussion veered from stock-picking to soft drinks, Musk cut in with a personal aside. ‘Diet Coke & Coke Zero are awesome,’ he wrote. ‘I don’t care if drinking gallons of it shaves a bit of life off. Worth it.’ It was a throwaway line, typed between strangers on a social network he owns, rather than a considered health statement. Yet anything Elon Musk says, even about fizzy drinks, tends to acquire a longer half‑life than he perhaps intends.

Elon Musk, Warren Buffett And The Coca‑Cola Habit

The news came after users pointed out that Buffett’s relationship with Coke is not just financial but deeply habitual. The 94‑year‑old has been cheerfully open about his consumption for years. In a 2015 interview with Fortune, he said: ‘If I eat 2,700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola. I drink at least five 12-ounce servings. I do it every day.’ He has a particular taste for Cherry Coke, and the brand has become part of the public image of the Omaha investor who says he eats ‘like a six-year-old’.

Musk’s version of loyalty to the brand is a little different. He sits on the other end of the corporate food chain as the world’s most prominent electric‑car boss rather than a dividend‑collecting shareholder. He is also very much a 21st‑century consumer, opting for zero‑sugar versions over the original formula that built Coca‑Cola’s global empire in the first place.

His post implicitly nods to the awkward middle ground that many modern drinkers occupy. Full‑sugar sodas have been firmly linked to obesity and Type 2 diabetes when consumed heavily. Yet the artificial sweeteners that power diet ranges have drifted under their own health cloud. Musk did not attempt to challenge or nuance that science. He boiled it down to personal preference and risk tolerance, stating that he simply does not care if there is a cost.

There is no confirmation in the thread or elsewhere about exactly how much diet soda Musk actually drinks, so the claim of ‘gallons’ should be read as rhetorical rather than literal. Nothing is confirmed yet, so everything should be taken with a grain of salt.

Health Concerns Hover Over Elon Musk’s Favourite Drinks

The health question behind Musk’s post is more complicated than a casual X update allows. Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose, commonly used in diet colas, have been under renewed scrutiny. A 2022 study published in the British Medical Journal linked higher artificial sweetener intake to a 9% increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Research cited by the American Heart Association has also associated daily diet soda consumption with greater risks of ischaemic stroke and dementia in older adults.

Those findings do not turn Diet Coke into a banned substance. They sit within a body of literature that is still developing and often contested, with scientists arguing over mechanisms, confounding factors and how much any observational study can really prove. Public health bodies tend to speak in cautious terms, advising moderation rather than abstinence. But the numbers are uncomfortable enough that anyone publicly celebrating ‘gallons’ of the stuff inevitably attracts attention.

Musk’s post sidestepped that nuance entirely. There was no attempt to argue that diet sodas are secretly healthy, no counter‑citation, no reference to regulators. Just a shrug and an admission that if the scientists are right and the price is a slightly shorter life, he is prepared to pay it. It is the kind of fatalistic calculation plenty of people make privately about bacon sandwiches, late nights or another glass of wine. Coming from the man building rockets to Mars, it lands a little differently.

Health experts might reasonably grimace at that framing. The American Heart Association’s own summaries of the evidence are careful to stress population‑level risk and to warn against simplistic swapping of one problem drink for another. Diet products are often pitched as a stepping stone away from sugar rather than a long‑term crutch. Musk, by contrast, appeared entirely at peace with making them a permanent fixture.

What is not in dispute is that both billionaires have become walking adverts for the beverages they favour. Buffett’s Cherry Coke routine has long doubled as soft branding for one of Berkshire’s most lucrative holdings. Coca‑Cola remains one of the conglomerate’s most recognisable positions and a steady dividend engine, even as the rest of the portfolio shifts around it.

At the same time, the zero‑sugar products Musk says he drinks have moved from niche to centre stage in Coca‑Cola’s own strategy. As consumers in the US, UK and beyond try to cut back on sugar, Coke Zero and Diet Coke are tasked with keeping people in the family rather than losing them to bottled water or rival brands. Watching the world’s richest man praise them publicly, even in his own darkly comic way, is the sort of marketing boost money cannot easily buy.

Strip away the market cap, the rockets and the shareholder letters, and this is an oddly simple story. One billionaire profits from Coke through owning it. Another keeps it within arm’s reach as a daily habit and jokes that the risk is worth it. For all the talk of optimisation and longevity, some of the people shaping the future are still perfectly prepared to crack open a can and leave the trade‑offs to everyone else to worry about.