SpaceX director Gracias gives $25 million to recapitalize MDMA therapy developer

Trump’s order directs FDA to accelerate psychedelic approvals

Lykos, which Gracias’s $25 million donation recapitalized, had faced federal rejection and criticism of its trial methodology. The FDA had turned down Lykos’s application to use MDMA — the drug commonly known as ecstasy or molly — alongside therapy to treat PTSD. Lykos had drawn criticism for missing serious side effects in some study subjects, including suicidal thoughts. Gracias, who also runs the Chicago-based investment firm Valor Equity Partners, took control and renamed the company Resilient Pharmaceuticals, relocating its headquarters to Chicago.

The company has since resubmitted its application to the FDA and is in talks to raise additional funding, according to people briefed on the plans. For the new submission, Resilient commissioned a third-party audit of its prior trials to compile new data on adverse events that had been omitted from its earlier filing, according to people close to the company. The firm also launched a Phase 1 trial in April to evaluate the safety of MDMA in healthy adults.

Gracias has separately given $16 million to Harvard to endow a professorship and fund research on psychedelics in society and culture. Steve Jurvetson, another SpaceX director, and his wife Genevieve Jurvetson have been among the field’s most prominent backers. Genevieve sits on the board of the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative, and the couple previously donated from their family foundation to support the Lykos drug trials. Musk’s brother Kimbal, a Tesla director, and his wife Christiana Musk have funded research including an academic fellowship on the societal effects of psychedelics.

Rick Doblin, the longtime psychedelics advocate who founded the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and created Lykos, said he approached Gracias about taking over the company at the Burning Man festival in 2024. “I asked Antonio to be a white knight and take it over,” Doblin said.

Genevieve Jurvetson said she turned to the field after losing a family member to opioid addiction. She and her husband attended the White House signing ceremony for Trump’s executive order in April. “After losing a family member to opioid addiction, I dedicated myself to this work because I don’t want other families to endure the same heartbreak,” she said.

Trump’s order directs the FDA to compress the approval timeline for drugs treating PTSD and depression from years to weeks. Trump credited podcaster Joe Rogan with bringing ibogaine, a psychoactive root that has been studied as a treatment for addiction, to his attention. At the signing event, Trump highlighted the drugs’ “life-changing potential for those suffering from severe mental illness and depression, including our cherished veterans.”

An FDA hearing on the therapeutic uses of psychedelics is scheduled for later this month. Other wealthy backers named in the Wall Street Journal’s reporting include David Bronner, the CEO of Dr. Bronner’s soap company; New York Mets owner Steve Cohen and his wife Alexandra Cohen; and Joby Pritzker, a member of the Pritzker family that founded Hyatt Hotels.

MDMA remains illegal at the federal level. Researchers have been permitted to study it under FDA oversight since the 1990s, after decades of broad restrictions dating to the 1970s. The drug induces euphoria and sociability by elevating serotonin and dopamine, and some researchers believe it can help PTSD patients revisit traumatic memories in a therapeutic setting. Critics point to the drug’s popularity as a recreational substance, the potential for abuse, and the difficulty of running double-blind trials — because psychedelics’ effects are typically apparent to patients and clinicians, undermining the blinding.

Gerard Sanacora, director of the Yale Depression Research Program, whose research supported the FDA’s approval of a ketamine nasal spray to treat depression, said the quality of recent research had improved. “Now we’re starting to see high-quality research studies,” Sanacora said. “It is very exciting but there still are some hurdles.”

Elon Musk has publicly discussed psychedelics and has said he was prescribed ketamine to treat depression. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024 that Gracias, Steve Jurvetson and Kimbal Musk had consumed drugs with the SpaceX and Tesla CEO.

Resilient is in talks to raise new funding, according to people familiar with the plans. Genevieve Jurvetson said she hoped that within a year, multiple FDA-approved psychedelic therapies would be available so patients could access treatment under trained medical professionals. “A year from now, I hope we’ll have multiple FDA-approved psychedelic therapies so patients can safely access treatment under the care of trained medical professionals,” she said.