It was like metaphor turned reality.

After 130 days spent fighting the federal government, Elon Musk turned up with a black eye at the White House on Friday for his last day as a “special government employee.” If you squinted, you could see it: His right eye socket was puffy and empurpled. No doubt about it: That was a big, fat shiner.

His project in Washington more or less finished, he never came close to cutting the $1 trillion from the federal government he had promised. His businesses and his public image got somewhat battered, and now, apparently, so had his face.

Did somebody beat him up?

The list of possible suspects seemed long. An abridged lineup of people and constituencies currently unhappy with Musk includes at least two of the many women with whom he has fathered children; pretty much the entire federal bureaucracy; his neighbors in a suburb of Austin, Texas; Tesla shareholders; old friends of his; Republicans on Capitol Hill; his 20-year-old daughter; all those people who have lit Teslas on fire; and even some Trump voters.

But it wasn’t any of those people who gave him the black eye. It was, he said, his progeny X, age 5.

“I was just horsing around with little X, and I said, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face,’ and he did,” Musk explained after a reporter asked him if he was OK.

It was an odd moment in a news conference that was quite odd to begin with. Moments earlier, Musk had angrily refused to engage with a question put to him about a new report in The New York Times detailing his drug use. Trump remained mostly mute as Musk batted back that question. Now the tech mogul was explaining why he looked beaten up.

The president seemed to find this rather amusing. “I didn’t notice,” he said as he turned in his seat to get a better look at Musk. “That was X that did that?”

Trump has spent a considerable amount of time around the little slugger over these last 130 days. He and Musk have even brought the child to sit ringside with them at UFC matches. Trump thought about the explanation that was being offered for the black eye. “X could do it,” he concluded, sounding almost impressed. “If you knew X, he could do it.” The way the president said this, you’d never guess he was talking about a 5-year-old.

And so Musk left Washington, his eye as bruised as his ego.

“I didn’t really feel much at the time,” he said about being punched in the face, “but then I guess it bruises up.”

The New York Times News Service