As he made an appearance at the White House on Friday for the final time as a special government employee, Elon Musk explained why he has a black eye. The Tesla CEO told reporters that it was his 5-year-old son X who gave him the black eye.
“I was just horsing around with little X, and I said, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face,’ and he did,” Musk told reporters, per the The New York Times.
While it looked to be a painful punch, Musk said it didn’t hurt much when his child hit him.
“I didn’t really feel much at the time,” he said. “But then I guess it bruises up.”
Sitting at his desk next to Musk, Donald Trump chimed in with his own thoughts on the black eye.
“X could do it,” he said. “If you knew X, he could do it.”
Elon Musk jokes about black eye and Emmanuel Macron
As he joked about his black eye, Musk also took the opportunity to take a jab at French President Emmanuel Macron, who was caught on video this week as he appeared to be getting punched by his wife, Brigitte Macron. Per the Independent, Musk told reporters that he “wasn’t anywhere near France.”
Elon Musk responds to drug use allegations
On the same day he showed up with a black eye, a New York Times report indicated that Musk has been regularly using powerful drugs such as ketamine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms and Adderall. When asked about the allegations on Friday, Musk lashed out at the Times.
Why is Elon Musk leaving the White House?
Musk’s exit comes after he criticized Trump earlier this week, saying the President’s “big beautiful bill” diminished the work of DOGE. Trump, however, credited Musk’s DOGE department for helping the government save “extra waste.”
“We’ll remember you as we announce billions of dollars of extra waste, fraud and abuse,” Trump said at Friday’s press conference, per the Independent. “DOGE has installed geniuses with an engineering mindset and unbelievably talented people on computers. I actually asked Elon one time, ‘What’s their primary thing?’ And they have a lot of primary things all having to do with being smart.”