The Right-Wing French Sculptors Who Are Courting Elon Musk

Presumably
in order to be closer to their new target customer base, the craftsmen now plan
to relocate to the United States. They’re torn between California and Texas,
the nation’s two tech hubs, though both prospects seem distant. While they
claim “many people have offered to fund” The Guardian of Liberty, the “real
challenge,” they confessed on X, is one familiar to many would-be foreign
visitors during the second Trump administration: obtaining a visa.

Despite the
noise and bluster on Atelier Missor’s social media about its ties to U.S.
companies and deep-pocketed supporters, there’s little evidence that the
foundry’s cash-strapped days are behind it. The foundry has been deliberately
vague about exactly how much funding it has received, but the Morningstar
website PitchBook lists just one investor: Founders, Inc.,
the  venture capital firm in San
Francisco that, according to its website, writes checks up to $250,000. That’s paltry,
given the cost of the Atelier’s work. Earlier this year, responding to
supposedly high demand, the sculptors disclosed that a seven-meter-tall (just under 23 feet) bronze
statue costs them $500,000 to produce. Even at the highest end of Founders,
Inc.’s range, the investment the foundry received would finance it to the tune
of half a Napoleon (or perhaps a dismounted Joan of Arc?).

That is, of
course, not to mention the difficulties thrown up by the new medium that Atelier
Missor proposes to work in. The post announcing its Guardian of Liberty statue
was the first time the foundry proposed working in titanium, but since then it
has made copious references to this plan. In July 2025, it even outlined a proposed method for using explosives to
create “thousands of gigantic titanium sculptures” at pace.