Twitter Really Hates 'Ugly' Bronze Statue Of Elon Musk Unveiled In New York

Updated September 5, 2021

Although I did pretty well in school, there was always one subject that I couldn't seem to get right for the life of me: art.

So whenever an artist's embarrassing mistake goes viral, you can bet that I'm not going to be one of those people who says, "Even I can do better!" Because quite honestly, I probably can't.

And considering how bizarrely frequently bronze statues honoring celebrities seem to go horribly wrong, I'm particularly confident that I'd mess them up worse.

Still, it's hard to deny that there's a kind of trainwreck spectacle in gawking at a statue that looks like the person it's supposed to be depicting melted. And whether they liked it or not, that's exactly the opportunity that New Yorkers recently received.

On June 28, investment website Public.com apparently wanted to celebrate Elon Musk's 50th birthday in a big way.

As they mentioned in a Twitter post, they're giving away 50 miniature bronze figures of Musk that anyone can get a chance to win by retweeting their announcement.

But as we're about to see, they didn't stop there.

They also dropped a life-size statue in New York City, specifically at the entrance to the NYC High Line.

Twitter | @public

As the firm tweeted out, "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."

But based on the replies, it looks like this statue isn't likely to get the warm reception the website expected.

Wikimedia Commons | Paparazzo Presents

For one thing, some commenters were stunned that this was even supposed to be Elon Musk, as one thought it looked more like it was honoring late TV legend Regis Philbin.

Personally, I agree that it doesn't look much like Musk, but I'm seeing more of a Ronald Reagan resemblance.

Another user was reminded of a similarly infamous bronze statue that made the rounds a couple of years ago.

I suppose it could be worse.

At least whoever made Musk's statue didn't manage to make him look as much like Sloth from The Goonies as the artist behind this bust of soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.

Most users, however, were just annoyed that this statue exists at all.

Believe it or not, this person saying, "Wow thanks a giant ugly statue no one asked for" was actually one of the nicer replies.

After all, one user said that it would be better if Public.com just defecated in the street, while another figured that somebody would destroy it by the end of the week.

Yet another noted how close its location is to the Hudson River and figured that the river was about to get a present of its own.

Suffice it to say, there weren't a lot of fans of this new statue nor of the fact that it's standing around the streets of New York City.

Filed Under:

Online Communities