Mimicking his billionaire father and picking his nose in the Oval Office, Elon Musk’s four-year-old son stole the show at Tuesday’s press conference with President Donald Trump.
Musk was at the White House to witness Trump sign an executive order requiring federal agencies to cooperate with the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to slash costs after facing pushback last week.
As Musk answered questions from the press, his son X Æ A-Xii proved to be a distraction by pulling faces, clinging onto his dad’s shoulders and interrupting him.
One clip circulating on social media shows X picking his nose and wiping it on the Resolute desk, which was gifted to President Rutherford Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880 and used by nearly every president since.
At another moment, X started mimicking his father while he was talking about democracy, prompting the billionaire to pause.
Musk fans delighted in seeing X, whom he shares with singer Grimes, in the Oval Office.
“Elon Musk is standing next to President Trump, talking about cutting the deficit in half—and his 4-year-old son, X, is just casually hanging off his dad’s shoulders, whispering to Trump, and picking his nose. Only Elon Musk could make an Oval Office press conference look like a casual family hangout!” one Trump supporter fawned in a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which Musk bought for $44bn in 2022 and renamed.
“Elon Musk’s kid stole the show in the Oval Office today,” another person said.
Conservative commentator and author Brigitte Gabriel said Musk’s son provided a “cuteness overload!” in the Oval Office.
But not everyone was thrilled. “I'm watching Elon Musk's son pick his nose, eat boogers and wipe them on the Resolute desk,” one person said. “There's no way this kid is not annoying Trump.”
“Elon’s kid wiping his boogers on the resolute desk is a sight I didn’t really need to see,” another commented.
Another quipped that the four-year-old looked bored. “It’s a close run thing between Trump and Musk’s son as which of them looks more bored at Elon’s disjointed rambling,” the person said.
Trump didn’t seem to mind being upstaged for once and described X as a “high IQ individual” as Musk took the majority of the questions from the press.
The SpaceX CEO has brought his son along to a number of major political moments, including onstage at Trump’s inauguration and appearing on a live broadcast on election night.
Musk was asked by reporters to respond to critics who have called his anti-government efforts a “hostile takeover” of the executive branch.
“The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get.”
He claimed that the purpose of Trump’s administration was to “restore democracy” by eliminating the independence of the professionalized civil service, which he described as “this unelected fourth, unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy.”
