Elon Musk lampooned with giant inflatable effigy in the middle of Times Square: reports

Billionaire tech giant Elon Musk was mocked with a giant, unflattering inflatable doll in the middle of New York City's Times Square, according to multiple reports.

The 40-foot effigy had "SPACEX's GROK MAKES AI CHILD PORN" written across Musk's shirtless belly, and under his sagging cleavage, Reuters photos show. His back had the same protest scrawled across the inflatable effigy's back, along with the name "Elon" on the back of its baseball cap.

The messages referred to the AI chatbot, Grok, available through X. It also came as a highly anticipated IPO on SpaceX, which is expected to make Musk the first trillionaire, Wired noted.

The demonstration was organized by Safe AI Now, a group of faith leaders, family advocates, child development experts, online safety organizations and others, according to Wired. The grinning and creepy doll was set up right in front of Nasdaq and JP Morgan's offices, which are both connected to the SpaceX IPO.

"This IPO is a liability shift," an anonymous Safe AI Now spokesperson told Wired. "Elon is responsible for all of this. It's all the decisions that he's made. All of those litigation expenses, regulatory fines, investigations, all of that is basically being shifted to the shareholders."

CNBC's Jim Cramer had strong words for President Donald Trump while talking about the economic pressures brought on by the Iran war.

"Is the president stepping it up in order to end the war? Or is he just stepping it out because he's had it?" Cramer asked during an appearance on "Squawk on the Street," where he spoke about inflation from the conflict. "That's the question, because he is a highly emotional man that's running a military."

Trump is "the opposite" of World War II General George Marshall, Cramer added. The comments came as Cramer broke down how the Iran War is driving up prices.

"We've got this problem. It's energy," Cramer said. "Then it's all the surcharges to get our food into the store...who pays that surcharge? We do. And we pay it when we go to the supermarket."

Cramer and CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla were also reacting to a 6.5 percent annualized increase in the Producer Price Index, a marker of worsening inflation. The European Central Bank also hiked interest rates.

"ECB today becomes the first G7 central bank to hike rates in response to the energy shock," Quintanilla said, adding that the 6.5 percent PPI increase "is not a great print."

President Donald Trump's team has reportedly planned under-the-table tactics to effectively still go through with the "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to pay off his allies who have been charged with crimes. But this is taking a huge risk, Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman told MS NOW's Erielle Reshef on Thursday.

The scheme, considered a slush fund by critics, drew bipartisan backlash, but ultimately Senate Republicans decided not to take legislative action against it after the Justice Department said it wouldn't go through with the plan. The new reporting could change the calculus, Sherman argued.

"Jake, did lawmakers think that they had put this all behind them?" asked Reshef. "What's the reaction on Capitol Hill, that this could come back to life?"

Republicans, replied Sherman, "had [acting Attorney General Todd] Blanche in committee saying it wasn't going to happen. They had assurances from the White House that wasn't going to happen. And and they voted down several amendments to make sure it didn't happen." Clearly, he continued, they thought all this had been a settled issue.

If "the administration does this in any way, shape or form," Sherman continued, it would constitute "a huge middle finger to Capitol Hill ... And there will be, I would imagine there will be legislative repercussions."

"Legislatively, what moves can Congress take to kill this?" Reshef pressed him. "Do they have options at this point?"

Sherman confirmed "they have lots of options." In addition to passing a law that would outright ban it, "they could also use the appropriations process to explicitly prohibit any money from going to this. There are ways."

Republicans chose not to use those powers because they thought Trump had backed down, he added, but "they have other opportunities to do that should they want to in the next, you know, 6 to 8 months."

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Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Oregon have publicly declined to send official delegations to President Donald Trump's Great American State Fair on the National Mall, opening June 25.

Three additional states remain uncommitted two weeks before the grand opening, according to reports by NOTUS.

The boycotts follow a wave of musical acts dropping out of the Freedom 250 music festival, with performers including Martina McBride and Bret Michaels citing misleading information about the event's political nature.

Trump responded by announcing he would open the fair with what he described as the greatest rally ever.

The controversy reflects deeper tensions between Freedom 250, Trump's entity producing the event, and America 250, Congress's bipartisan commission.

The Trump administration withheld tens of millions from America 250 — now facing a $100 million shortfall — while funneling at least $68 million to Freedom 250. Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey criticized Trump's financial motivations.

North Carolina, a Trump-voting state, declined participation, citing a $100,000 preparation cost it cannot afford. Officials in other states cited rushed timelines and staffing concerns.

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