In Donald Trump’s eyes, a carefully created piece of art can make anyone look like a hero — even a president whose decisions have stirred chaos at home and abroad. But what happens when the hero statue becomes a symbol of something far less glorious? That is exactly what is unfolding right now around a 15-foot golden figure sitting in an Ohio studio, waiting for a check that never seems to arrive.
The sculptor at the center of this story is Alan Cottrill, a 73-year-old artist from Zanesville, Ohio, who has spent a career building bronze likenesses of national leaders. He has made somewhere between 16 and 19 presidential statues over the years. This one, he says, was different from the start.
Cottrill got the call in August 2024 to build a bronze giant capturing Trump’s iconic fist-pump pose — the one the world saw right after Trump survived the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt just one month earlier. The image was unforgettable, and the commission felt historic. It was, Cottrill noted, the first time he had ever been asked to sculpt a living president.
“It’s the first living president I’ve ever done,” he explained in a video now circulating widely on social media.
The project moved fast — maybe too fast. Cottrill and his team worked seven days a week applying gold leaf to the 15-foot bronze figure. The statue itself took roughly a month to sculpt at life size, and another three months to scale up, cast in bronze, and painstakingly finish by hand. By any measure, it was a serious, professional job done under real pressure.
“When they said 15-feet tall, they were starting to get to the scale of my ego,” Cottrill joked, describing the sheer ambition of the piece. But behind the humor was a real commitment. He pushed his team hard because the people who commissioned the statue had told him Trump would likely unveil it in either December 2024 or January 2025, right around the time of the inauguration.
That deadline shaped everything. The clock was ticking, the expectations were high, and the statue got done. What did not get done, apparently, was the payment.
Despite finishing the work on time and under intense pressure, Cottrill says he is still owed around $92,000 of his total fee. He has made it absolutely clear he will not release the statue until every dollar is settled.
“I would be a fool to install it without the payment being made, and I am not a fool,” he said bluntly.
The people who commissioned the statue were not just Trump supporters with deep pockets. They were cryptocurrency entrepreneurs who financed the project partly to promote a meme coin called $PATRIOT. The plan was to use the statue, Trump’s likeness, and the spectacle of the unveiling to drive attention toward their digital currency. Cottrill says they went behind his back and began using images of his work to market the coin without his permission, which is where the intellectual property dispute comes in.
$PATRIOT launched in November 2024 and initially gained real traction among Trump’s fanbase. Then Trump launched his own meme coin, $TRUMP, just days before the January 2025 inauguration — and $PATRIOT collapsed almost overnight. The coin is now more than 95 percent off its peak value. The unveiling of the statue, tied directly to $PATRIOT’s promotional strategy, never happened.
‘Don Colossus,’ a 15-foot statue depicting US President Donald Trump, is at the center of a dispute between the Ohio-based sculptor who created it and the cryptocurrency investors who commissioned it. pic.twitter.com/Wgx1pZqDY6
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 14, 2026One of the key figures behind $PATRIOT is Dustin Stockton, a Republican strategist who was previously investigated by federal agents in connection with the “We Build The Wall” fundraising scheme — the same case that saw longtime Trump advisor Steve Bannon plead guilty to defrauding donors. Stockton did not respond to requests for comment on the payment dispute.
Despite not paying the sculptor, the people behind the project have already moved forward with grander plans. The Don Colossus, as the statue is being called, is reportedly set to appear at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Miami in December 2026, where it would tower over world leaders on a massive pedestal at Trump National Doral. The ambition is almost comically large given that the sculptor still has not been paid.
The reaction online has been immediate and, for the most part, firmly on Cottrill’s side. When news of the payment dispute spread through social media, readers did not hold back.
“You got screwed Alan. You are now part of a group of dummies who have been. 90,000 bucks down the toilet,” one person wrote.
Another suggested, “Melt it and put it back in blocks.”
Someone else asked the most practical question of all: “Did u have a written contract signed by rump or his lackeys? If not then you have been robbed.”
The story gained even more attention after a separate Trump sculpture was unveiled at Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks. That moment, tied to remarks Trump made about his overseas leadership, quickly became a viral conversation of its own. The buzz around it naturally pulled the Don Colossus story back into the spotlight.
For now, the statue sits in Zanesville — finished, polished, and going nowhere. Cottrill says he is ready to ship and install the piece the moment the remaining balance is paid in full. Until that happens, the artwork stays exactly where it is.
The broader picture here goes well beyond one artist waiting on a check. It touches on how Trump’s inner orbit, including the cryptocurrency world that has attached itself to his brand, operates when no one is watching. The money trail behind the Don Colossus is murky, the people involved have histories that raise real questions, and the artist who did the actual work is the one left holding the bill.
Sometimes the most revealing thing about a political figure is not the statue being built in their honor. It is who built it, who paid for it, and who is still waiting by the phone.
