A White House news conference took a detour on Friday when billionaire Elon Musk, standing beside President Donald Trump to address reporters as he prepares to depart his formal role with the federal government, was asked about the striking purple-and-yellow discoloration around his right eye.

Musk said he was “horsing around” with his 5-year-old son X, who struck him in the face and caused a bruise.

“I was just horsing around with little X, and I said, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face.’ And he did,” he said.

“I didn’t really feel much at the time and then, I guess, it bruises up,” he added.

The president also commented on the black eye. “That was X that did that?” Trump said. “X could do it. If you knew X, he could do it.”

Musk also said that he “wasn’t anywhere near France,” referencing a video from earlier this week of French President Emmanuel Macron being pushed in the face by his wife, Brigitte, which Macron said showed the couple joking together.

Musk appeared with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday to discuss the end of his tenure as a special government employee overseeing the U.S. DOGE Service.

He held the role for 130 days and characterized himself as an ongoing “friend and adviser” to Trump, despite departing his official position and signaling his intention to switch his focus to his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX. He added that his departure was “not the end of DOGE.” Trump said Musk, the world’s richest person, would “be back and forth” in Washington and “is really not leaving.”

DOGE’s efforts to dramatically reduce the size of the federal government put into motion tens of thousands of job losses and the gutting of government agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, though many of its actions have faced court challenges.

Musk’s son X, whose full name is X Æ A-Xii Musk, is one of Musk’s children with Claire Boucher, a musician known professionally as Grimes. Of his at least a dozen children, X has appeared in public with his father the most in recent months, including on his father’s shoulders at a White House news conference and onstage at a Trump rally.