Trump Sends Resolute Desk Out for Refurbishment After Musk’s Son Appeared To Wipe Booger on It

President Donald Trump, a reported “germaphobe,” announced the Oval Office’s historic Resolute Desk had been sent away for refurbishment just a week after Elon Musk’s four-year-old son appeared to wipe a booger on it.

Trump made no mention of mucus or Musk’s young son in an announcement on his Truth Social account Wednesday night. But just after 9:30 ET, Trump informed his followers the desk had been sent away:

A President, after election, gets a choice of 1 in 7 desks. This desk, the “C&O,” which is also very well-known and was used by President George H.W. Bush and others, has been temporarily installed in the White House while the Resolute Desk is being lightly refinished—a very important job. This is a beautiful, but temporary replacement!

The president did not offer a timeline for when the desk – which has been in the White House since 1880 – would return to service.

It is noteworthy that on Feb. 11, one of Musk’s three children with Canadian singer Grimes accompanied his father for a joint presser in the Oval Office with Trump.

While the president and the Tesla and SpaceX CEO talked shop on apparent government waste and DOGE, X Musk put one or more of his fingers up his nose while standing between Musk and Trump.

As a number of social media users noted at the time, the child also appeared to rub his hand – and potentially a booger – on the president’s desk.

CNN profiled Trump’s aversion to germs less than two weeks before the Covid pandemic swept the nation and the globe on March 3, 2020:

He is a self-described germaphobe who is known to glare at aides who sneeze in his vicinity or try to shake hands with him after coughing. Before becoming president, he once wrote the practice of shaking hands was “barbaric,” though it’s one political tradition even he’s been unable to banish.

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