Melania Trump has spent the second term navigating a husband who moves her furniture into his bedroom, skips events she attends and invites guests she does not want. One of those guests has now been identified in a new book by two of the most credentialed White House reporters.
According to Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, written by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Elon Musk asked Trump during his DOGE tenure whether he could sleep at the White House. Trump said yes. Melania “initially objected,” the authors write, and Trump overruled her. Musk spent several nights in the Lincoln Bedroom, a guest suite that has previously hosted Winston Churchill, the Queen of England and now a man who would later accuse his host of covering up the Epstein files.
Musk had already spoken about the sleepovers publicly before the book revealed Melania’s objection, which made the disclosure considerably more awkward in retrospect.
He told reporters that Trump would extend the offer spontaneously during Air Force One and Marine One trips. “The president’s, very, very, I guess we’re good friends and we’ll be on Air Force One or Marine One and then he’s like, ‘Hey do you want to stay over?’ and I’m like, ‘Sure,'” Musk said. “And then he gave me a tour of the Lincoln Bedroom and… oh, this is cool.” He was careful to add: “I didn’t request it, to be sure.”
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The hospitality extended well past the bedroom tour, apparently well into the night.
“He’ll actually call, like late at night, and say, like, ‘Oh, by the way, make sure you get some ice cream from the kitchen,'” Musk told reporters. “I ate a whole tub of ice cream… Caramel, Häagen-Dazs. I mean, don’t tell RFK.” He concluded: “He’s actually a very good host.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again campaign was presumably not consulted on the caramel Häagen-Dazs.
On nights away from the Lincoln Bedroom, the book says Musk stayed with friends or slept in a sleeping bag on the floor of his Eisenhower Building office, a detail that raises its own questions about the logistics of being the world’s richest man in Washington.
Melania was far from alone in her reservations, as it turned out.
Haberman and Swan report that Susie Wiles and Scott Bessent both took issue with Musk’s conduct during his DOGE tenure. In March 2025, Secretaries Rubio, Doug Collins and Sean Duffy confronted him in what he thought was a routine meeting, furious over what they saw as his overreach into their agencies.
The book quotes aides describing his conduct as “unhinged,” and Musk walked into the confrontation entirely unaware he was the target.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
