I discuss the investigation of heavy exotic mesons using lattice QCD static potentials and the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. I summarize selected recent results for $\bar{b} \bar{b} q q$ tetraquarks, for $I = 0$ bottomonium and for $I = 1$ bottomonium. Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, talk given at "MESON2023", 22-27 June 2023, Krakow, Poland