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Motivated by the symmetric version of matrix multiplication we study the plethysm $S^k(\mathfrak{sl}_n)$ of the adjoint representation $\mathfrak{sl}_n$ of the Lie group $SL_n$. In particular, we describe the decomposition of this representation into irreducible components for $k=3$, and find highest weight vectors for all irreducible components. Relations to fast matrix multiplication, in particular the Coppersmith-Winograd tensor are presented.