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While it may have looked like President Donald Trump was ceding the spotlight Tuesday to Elon Musk during their joint Oval Office appearance, a body language expert thought otherwise.
During the 30-minute back-and-forth with press, Trump was seated at the Resolute Desk – while Musk was standing alongside him, with son X sometimes propped up on the billionaire DOGE leader’s shoulders.
Judi James told DailyMail.com that ‘Musk is standing in a very unusual spot in what is essentially a throne room.’
‘The fact that he is standing while Trump sits gives him the status advantage of height but the only people standing behind or to the side of the throne like this are traditionally security or waiters,’ James said.
She also said the way Trump introduced Musk was ‘significant in terms of who is the leader of who.’
‘His “I’ll ask Elon…Musk to say a few words” puts him in the role of enabler and seems to imply a time limit,’ she noted.
Since entering his second term, James has observed an important ‘rebrand’ in Trump’s body language.
The 78-year-old president has shown there’s ‘not one sliver of any desire to showboat or joke,’ even at more casual events like this Sunday’s Super Bowl.
‘The fact that [Elon Musk] (left) is standing while Trump (right) sits gives him the status advantage of height but the only people standing behind or to the side of the throne like this are traditionally security or waiters,’ body language expert Judi James told DailyMail.com
President Donald Trump (right) has rebranded his body language since starting off his second term, James noticed, ‘presenting as an intensely serious world leader.’ Some of that showed through when he ignored Musk’s son X (left), who tried to get the president’s attention
‘He is now presenting as an intensely serious world leader, stuffed full of gravitas, who no-one should want to mess with,’ she said.
Some of that showed in Trump’s interactions with Musk’s son X.
X babbled through his father’s opening remarks while trying to get the president’s attention.
‘The boy and Trump stare at one another warily at one point but as the child moves across to chat, Trump quickly looks away, which is an enchantingly random transaction,’ James observed.
She also couldn’t help but notice the extreme stylistic differences between Musk and Trump, as the DOGE leader spoke for most of the 30 minutes reporters were invited into the Oval Office.
‘Musk takes over the baton verbally with a “So…” and proceeds to illustrate the enormous contrast in corporate cultural styles,’ she noted.
‘Trump’s is tradition power-posturing, with formal business wear and a huge desk,’ she said.
She also recalled how young Barron wasn’t seen crawling around the Oval Office during Trump’s first term, instead he was at first lady Melania Trump’s side.
Body language expert Judi James said that Musk bringing X into the Oval Office is ‘like those children of indulgent parents who allow their kids free rein to run and play when they visit your home’
‘The only “children” to enter it are on the payroll as adults,’ she said of Trump’s Oval Office.
With Musk, he’s ‘clad in a baseball cap and his young son has been brought into the Oval Office like those children of indulgent parents who allow their kids free rein to run and play when they visit your home.’
‘The only collusive looking way that this scenario works is if Elon has asked Trump if his son can be present and Trump had gone into grandpa mode, indulging the child as his father is,’ she continued. ‘But that isn’t happening here.’
Instead X becomes a ‘distraction’ and ‘he makes Trump a huge distraction too, because people are waiting for him to react.’
‘At one point the child is mirroring and mimicking his dad’s body language and then he is up on Musk’s shoulders, pulling his hat off and rumpling his hair,’ James said. ‘This might be the norm in Silicon Valley but it’s a novel first for Trump’s White House.’
