US President Donald Trump has replaced the iconic 145-year-old desk with a C&O desk, after billionaire Elon Musk’s son X Æ A-Xii, whom he calls X, was seen picking his nose standing close to the President’s Resolute Desk.
President Trump, who has in the past labelled himself as a germophobe, shared a picture of the Oval Office with the new desk on his social media account, Truth Social. He has called it a ‘temporary change’. However, it was not clear if the change was brought in due to the nose-picking incident.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, “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 Resolute Desk was built from the remains of the British Arctic exploration vessel the HMS Resolute and presented by Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. As per The White House, the desk was used by every president since Rutherford B. Hayes, except presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford (from 1964 to 1977.)
According to New York Post, C&O is short for Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, and was initially built for that company’s owners. It was initially used in the Oval Office Study in 1975 before rail company GSX donated it to the White House in 1987.
Elon Musk’s son was part of the press briefing on a new executive order pertaining to the billionaire’s role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. While introducing him, Donald Trump said, “This is X, and he’s a great guy—a high IQ individual.”
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