12-foot Elon Musk statue vandalised in Texas
A 12-foot-tall bust of billionaire Elon Musk was recently vandalised in Texas. The statue sustained deep gouges to the eye, chin and back. No suspect has been identified.
The landowner, Eleazar Villafranca, had the work sitting on his property for almost a year. Villafranca has reached out to the artist behind the bust regarding the vandalism, but having received no response, asked another artist to repair the artwork.
The statue appears to be the one that was commissioned by a French technology entrepreneur who goes by the name Louis XXII. He told ARTnews that he commissioned the piece “to bring visibility to a viral meme of a bad drawing of Musk posted on Reddit six years ago.”
This isn’t the first incident of vandalism on symbols relating to long-time Tesla CEO and newly-appointed White House advisor. Since Musk was given responsibility for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from Donald Trump, the New York Times reported the damage of more than 80 Teslas in Hamilton, Ontario.
After a similar surge in anti-Elon Musk graffiti in Washington DC., the city police released a statement that painted the incidents as hate crimes.
“The suspects wrote political hate speech onto the victims’ Tesla vehicles then fled the scene,” the police press release declared. “The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating these offenses as potentially being motivated by hate or bias.”
The DOGE recently recommended that the National Endowment for the Humanities cut up to 80 percent of its staff, and many grant recipients reported receiving their grants cancelled.It appears a creative battle is being waged; frustrated Americans are acting out on local platforms while Musk cuts national funding from above. The Musk statue is just one symbol amongst thousands caught in the cultural crossfire.
