What do you get the man who has everything? In the case of Elon Musk, you could get him a life-sized monument to his ego.
But that would be nearly impossible. You’d need to build a skyscraper to accurately represent the tycoon’s self-importance.
With budgetary constraints and planning permissions presumably in mind, investing app Public.com has instead constructed a six-foot statue of Musk to mark the great man’s 50th birthday — and plonked it in Manhattan.
And because Elon’s ambition (and maybe ego) is definitely not miniature, we dropped a life-sized statue on 14th St. and The High Line stairs in NYC.
Go say hi. 👋 pic.twitter.com/fBO81PF5bR
— Public.com (@public) June 28, 2021
The pose encapsulates Musk’s characteristic sense of smugness, but Public.com didn’t reveal the cause of his pleasure in the moment it was captured. Was it the arrival of another income tax bill of zero? A Twitter pile-on after baselessly slurring a heroic cave diver as a pedophile? A cryptocurrency collapse triggered by a sudden U-turn he made on bitcoin?
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One can only imagine the horrors that caused such rapture. But surely the residents of New York would welcome the new addition to their cityscape?
Apparently not. Rather than genuflecting before the statue of the blessed billionaire, the city’s ingrates have suggested throwing the chunk of bronze into the nearby Hudson River. One monster even envisioned using it as a public restroom.
It might not be the public artwork that New Yorkers wanted. But an unwelcome monument to the planet’s third-richest person is a timely totem to the USA‘s rising income inequality.