President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that the Resolute Desk has been temporarily removed from the Oval Office to be “refinished,” a touch-up that occurred just days after Elon Musk’s son seemingly picked his nose and wiped it on the historic piece of furniture.
“A President, after election, gets a choice of 1 in 7 desks,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday. “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The C&O desk was originally made for the owners of Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in 1920, but was later gifted to the White House as a donation. While George H.W. Bush used it in the Oval Office, other former presidents like Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan used it in the West Wing Study.
The Resolute Desk, however, is an iconic mainstay of the Oval Office, having recently been used by former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as by Trump in his first term. The desk is a seminal part of the Oval Office’s iconography—and was known for being a young John F. Kennedy Jr.’s favorite hiding spot.
During a press conference on all things DOGE last week, Musk’s son X Æ A-12 spun social media into a frenzy after being caught picking his nose and wiping it on the Resolute Desk.
