What did Donald Trump do today?

He didn't really seem to know whether Elon Musk was leaving his government "job," although he wasn't alone in that.

Today, Trump held an Oval Office event in which he appeared with Elon Musk, his chief political patron. The occasion was Musk's supposed retreat from government work as the de facto head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

It was never clear who, as a legal matter, was in charge of DOGE. Trump consistently said that it was Musk. Musk himself also implied as much, albeit in ways that seemed to preserve his ability to claim otherwise under oath. Pressed by various judges in lawsuits involving DOGE, the administration eventually decided it was a bureaucrat named Amy Gleason—apparently without telling her in advance. And recently, spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said without further explanation that the head of DOGE was the entire Cabinet, including Trump. 

Musk has been grating on Trump's other handlers since the week after the election, and appears to have been finally pushed out in a classic power struggle between factions competing for control of the Trump agenda. 

But Trump himself may not fully understand that: his remarks today suggested that Musk was not, in fact, actually leaving DOGE at all. 

Over the last few days, several stories have run in major newspapers about Musk's rampant drug use and its obvious and troubling effects on him. In particular, they focus on his abuse of the dissociative drug ketamine. This is old news where Musk is concerned: Tesla board members reported years ago that Musk pressured them to do the drug with him. But the recent stories were the first time such testimony had come from sources from inside the Trump White House.

During his appearance with Trump, Musk lolled his head and rolled his eyes back, seeming to lose focus. He also mentioned, unprompted and without further elaboration, that the fresh black eye he was sporting came from having asked his five-year-old son to punch him in the face.

Why does this matter?

• It's a bad sign when Donald Trump is not the most erratic person in a Donald Trump administration.  

• One reason the powers of the presidency shouldn't be for sale to the highest bidder is that the highest bidder so often turns out to be someone like Elon Musk.