The one guest Melania didn’t want staying over at the White House - but she was overruled
The one guest Melania didn’t want staying over at the White House - but she was overruled
Brendan RasciusTue, June 23, 2026 at 2:08 PM UTC
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First Lady Melania Trump reportedly objected to hosting one particularly high-profile overnight guest at the White House — but she was overruled.
The alleged snub is detailed in Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, a new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
The book, based on hundreds of interviews and rich with insights into Trump family dynamics and policy debates, has reportedly left some White House insiders uneasy. It was published Tuesday. According to an excerpt obtained by The Daily Beast, Elon Musk, who led the DOGE task force, asked President Donald Trump if he could crash at the White House.
The president agreed, but the first lady was against the idea, the outlet reports. She objected but was ultimately overruled. The SpaceX and Tesla founder went on to spend multiple nights in the Lincoln Bedroom, located in the private residence.
"Other nights he stayed with friends," the book states. "Though he also told associates he had taken to using a sleeping bag on the floor of his office in the Eisenhower Building."
Melania Trump did not want Elon Musk to sleep over at the White House but the first lady was overruled, according to a new book (Getty Images)
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
During his four-month stint as a special government employee, Musk oversaw numerous layoffs across multiple federal agencies and pushed budget cuts. A major Trump donor in 2024, Musk promised to root out bureaucratic waste and save the government $2 trillion — but federal spending actually rose.
In May 2025, he told reporters he "sometimes" stayed overnight at the White House, while insisting it was only at the president's invitation.
"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. "I didn't request it, to be sure."
"He'll actually call at night and say like, 'By the way, make sure you get some ice cream from the kitchen,'" the trillionaire said about Trump.
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The next month, Musk left DOGE, an exit that coincided with his public falling out with Trump, apparently sparked by the businessman's opposition to the "Big, Beautiful Bill." Amid the feud, Musk claimed the president was in the Epstein files, while Trump said Musk had "lost his mind." More recently, the two appear to have mended fences with Musk joining Trump on his whirlwind trip to China.
The first lady is not the only person in the Trump world to take issue with the SpaceX founder. In a December 2025 Vanity Fair profile, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles called Musk "an odd, odd duck" and labeled him "an avowed ketamine" user. Axios reported in April 2025 that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also clashed with Musk in a "heated shouting match" over the IRS.
Several others in Trump's orbit have reportedly taken issue with Elon Musk in the past, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (Getty Images)
Beyond the palace intrigue surrounding White House sleepovers, Haberman and Swan's new book also sheds light on Trump's relationship with the first lady.
The pair are reportedly locked in an interior design stand-off, which has apparently become a headache for staff.
"The President's redecorating generated such a flurry of activity that staff often felt caught between the two Trumps, who were the only presidential couple to regularly use and maintain separate bedrooms since Richard and Pat Nixon," the authors write, according to an excerpt obtained by the Daily Mail.
The 80-year-old president, who maintains a separate bedroom from the first lady, has been known to redecorate while his wife, who spends time in New York and Florida, is out of town.
"Items were spirited from the second-floor corridor into the President's bedroom," Haberman and Swan write. "Sometimes Trump carried the objects in himself, rearranging things across the private quarters on a whim."
The authors also revealed a term of endearment that Trump uses for his youngest son, Barron, who is a college student in New York.
Following the assassination of conservative commentator, Charlie Kirk, Barron Trump reportedly called his father in a panic, worried that the president could be targeted next.
"Calm down, honey, calm down," Trump responded, according to the book.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
