Don Collossus.
Photo: Ben Jared/Getty Images
It says a lot about our current president that in response to the news that a giant gold statue of Donald Trump was dedicated this week, you have to ask, “Which one?”
Gold statues of our dear leader have been used to praise him at events like CPAC, and to protest him, as with the statue of Trump holding Jeffrey Epstein that briefly appeared on the National Mall. There will also be two golden statues of Trump in his presidential library, according to its AI-slop preview video.
Today, we’re focusing on a statue dubbed Don Colossus, which now sits outside the Trump National Doral Miami golf course. The statue, which depicts Trump with his fist raised, was commissioned by the $PATRIOT cryptocurrency group shortly after the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt. Artist Alan Cottrill finished it before Trump’s second inauguration, as the New York Times reported earlier this year. But then Don Colossus was held hostage in a payment dispute between Cottrill and the crypto bros. The disagreement was resolved this spring when an anonymous donor stepped in and paid the artist the remainder of what he said he was owed.
So in late April, the 15-foot statue was placed atop a seven-foot pedestal on the grounds of Trump’s Miami golf course. And on Wednesday, the statue was formally unveiled at a dedication ceremony presided over by Pastor Mark Burns, a friend of the president who helped organize the project.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, Uh, isn’t gathering to praise a giant golden statue textbook idolatry? I’m glad you (hypothetically) asked because this was actually one of the very first things Burns addressed in the captions to his Instagram posts on the event.
“Let me be clear: this is not a golden calf. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone,” he wrote.
This is a real “My ‘Not a Golden Calf’ shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt,” situation. And Donald Trump seems to recognize this.
Eric Trump clarified back in February that $PATRIOT is not an official Trump-family meme coin.
The Trump Organization has no association of any kind with the Patriot Token or meme coin ($PATRIOT) referenced below.
We appreciate the support and enthusiasm, but we want to be crystal clear — we are not involved in this coin. https://t.co/e5PZBQjmp4
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) February 2, 2026
Obviously, however, the Trumps do have an “association” of some kind with $PATRIOT, in that they allowed it to install a huge statue on the president’s golf course. The Times reported that Pastor Burns had been sending statue updates to Trump all along, and he claimed the president had planned to attend its unveiling.
Perhaps Trump realized attending the dedication of a gold statue in his honor was a little much, especially because he’s still facing heat for posting an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus. Instead, he just called Burns during the ceremony.
And on Thursday morning, Trump shared on Truth Social what appears to be a screenshot from a Telegraph piece on the dedication.
Would it have been politically smarter for Trump to distance himself entirely from this project and avoid the whole “Does Trump think he’s a king and/or a golden god” debate? Sure. But they drove a badass Trump statue up to his house! He’s not made of stone! (Or gold. Or, more accurately, bronze covered in gold leaf.)
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