Ever since Tesla started delivering the Cybertruck to its customers, YouTube has been flooded with videos of the electric pickup truck towing all sorts of things. In fact, the American EV maker raced a Porsche 911 with a Cybertruck towing a 911 as a publicity stunt to showcase its crazy acceleration. However, the residents of Brownsville, Texas, spotted something completely wild being hauled by a blacked-out Cybertruck. It’s a nine-foot-tall sculpture of Elon Musk inspired by a poorly drawn portrait that went viral on Reddit six years ago and turned into a meme.
A French tech entrepreneur who goes by Louis XXII is the person behind the idea of immortalizing the meme by making a giant sculpture. “We had the idea to bring something into life that would be more striking and maybe even crazier and funnier,” the entrepreneur told ARTnews.
Louis XXII is also the co-founder of ElonRWA, a “real world asset meme” token on Ethereum’s second layer, organized by the decentralized autonomous organization FeistyDAO. However, he insists that the statue wasn’t built as a marketing stunt to boost ElonRWA’s value. “The statue is not linked to the valuation of this [ElonRWA] token,” the entrepreneur said. “It’s just a funny way to represent this meme in other ways.”
While the statue might look heavy, it is actually made from foam and fiberglass. Built in Utah, the sculpture was received by Louis XXII on August 15. It was given a shiny bronze-like paint job to make it look like an actual sculpture crafted out of metal. The French entrepreneur and his digital artist collective also commissioned a large mural of the same bad drawing earlier this year. Painted by local Brownsville artist Carlos Manuel Guerrero, the mural has the phrase “Occupy Mars.”
