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| - In February 2025, several weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump took office for his second term, a rumor began to spread that a statue of a goat that had golden hooves and was covered in $100 bills featuring Trump's face was on display at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private club in Palm Beach, Florida.
For example, the anti-Trump X account Patriot Takes posted photographs of the goat on Feb. 10, 2025, and referred to it as an "idol" (archived), in reference to the story of the golden calf in sacred texts:
As of this writing, the post had gained 7.3 million views and 9,400 likes. The claim also appeared on Reddit, with similar pictures, and on Facebook.
The goat is real and is part of a project known as Project G.O.A.T., which stands for Global Offensive Against Trafficking. Because of this, the claim is true.
The project is an initiative of Athletes & Causes, an organization in Florida that pairs athletes with philanthropic efforts. Its founder, Rob Canton, also runs the Grady Goat Foundation in Florida, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fundraising through goat yoga classes in order to support disadvantaged children.
The Project G.O.A.T. "About" page explains that the goat sculptures are all unique and are auctioned off "to spread awareness to fight and prevent human trafficking & sexual exploitation of children." The page includes a photograph of the goat after which the statues were modeled, who lives at the Grady Goat farm.
The site also links to an Instagram account that first posted about the goat at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 1, 2025 (archived):
On Feb. 10, the account posted again about the goat, sharing a video of the sculpture sitting on a table in a luxurious dining room (archived):
Comparing the dining room in the video with photos of the dining room at Mar-a-Lago, we were able to determine that it was filmed at the private club. The two posts on Instagram showed that the goat had a golden tail and golden horns, and that its base was inscribed with the words "I love you" and Trump's signature.
Snopes contacted Project G.O.A.T. by email and received a response from Canton, who confirmed that the goat had been delivered to Mar-a-Lago. He added that the auction for the goat was scheduled for Feb. 27, 2025, and no starting price had been set.
Canton also said this specific goat sculpture was his own artwork. He provided a photograph of it before it was sent to Mar-a-Lago and before Trump signed it:
(Rob Canton)
The photo showed that Trump's face appeared on the $100 bills where Benjamin Franklin's face normally appears, with the motto "IN TRUMP WE TRUST" where the words "ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS" would appear on a legitimate bill.
Although many comments on social media posts about the sculpture were critical of the artwork and of Trump, Canton said he had received a mostly positive response.
"The vast majority of the comments I've seen and received about my artwork have been from individuals that believe President Trump is among the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) businessmen, dealmakers, Presidents, and/or world leaders," he said in his email. "I am pleased that my artwork triggered a ton of discussion and hope it continues to do so..to me that tells me I succeeded in my primary goal when creating art."
The idea of animal statues decorated in different ways by various artists is not new. For example, the year 1999 saw the rise of CowParade, a global exhibit of cow statues painted in different ways. In the early 2000s, Buddy Bears appeared in Berlin, showing statues of standing bears also painted in a variety of ways. The goats have used the same artistic principle, as the Project G.O.A.T. website says.
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