Will This Colorado Illustrator's Anti-MAGA Artwork Go Viral... Again?

Is Elon Musk the same as Hitler?

"No," says Christopher Cox, the Colorado graphic designer behind a new illustration that features Elon Musk with a Hitler mustache, rendered in a style similar to Shepard Fairey's iconic, HOPE-branded portrait of Barack Obama. Cox adds, "I don't necessarily think that Musk is literally like Hitler. It's just a joke. Anyway, what do I know? I’m a working-class designer. I just do not like what I’m seeing right now. Above all, my illustrations are political satire. That’s as far as it goes."

In Cox's case, "as far as it goes" is pretty damn far. On February 7, he unveiled his new Twitler design — yes, it's a portmanteau of "twit" and "Hitler" — that equates the richest man in the world with the most notorious dictator in history. The sampling of Obama's inspirational red, white and blue iconography only makes it that much more jarring. Which is all part of Cox's plan.

"My son asked me last night, 'Why did you make it red, white and blue?'" Cox says from his home studio in Fort Collins. "And I was like, 'Because it forces people who think they're patriotic to look at an authoritarian like Musk in a patriotic way, and then they have to kind of rectify that in their minds.'"

Cox is not shy when it comes to his opinions. Although he's spent much of his 26-year career in graphic design working for high-profile corporate and creative clients — among them Nike, Burton, Nickleback, Luke Bryan, Denver rock star Nathaniel Rateliff and the Colorado Lottery — he launched the popular, no-holds-barred blog Change the Thought in 2008. And his best-known illustration involves the most divisive figure in modern politics: Donald Trump.

"In 2016, Trump was making my blood boil," says Cox, who had worked on poster designs for both Obama and Bernie Sanders, including Sanders's "We Not Me" campaign. "When Trump was elected and said, 'I alone can fix it,' I remember thinking at the time, 'That's going to split people right down the middle. 'I alone can fix it' is exactly what Hitler offered to the Germans," he notes. "So I made a bunch of posters making fun of Trump.'"

Cox didn't sign his name to the Trump parody he came up with, captioned "Twitler" and complete with a Hitler mustache pasted on POTUS 45's lip. Instead, he allowed anyone to download the Adobe file for free and use it for the purpose of protest. People took him up on that offer in a big way: At one point Jamie Foxx shared it online, and Cox began seeing photos from across the country that featured demonstrators using his image.
Soon after, Cox started seeing the downside of going viral. A number of online stores started selling T-shirts with his image on them without giving him credit or compensation.

"I don't know what aggravates me more," he says. "The fact that people took my design to make merchandise, or that I didn't motivate myself enough to just do it before somebody else stole it. When I was younger and all punk rock, I didn't care. But now I'm older. I have kids, and I'm trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to get them through college."

This time around, Cox has a trademark on his Twitler design. He hopes the Musk-Hitler hybrid goes viral like his Trump image, but he wouldn't mind if he benefited from it financially. Still, he's torn.

"I feel like being a designer is different from being an artist," he explains. "What you create as a designer doesn't belong to you, and it kind of shouldn't. If you're doing it because you want to own it, then it's not really design. Political art, it kind of needs to be owned by everybody in order for it to achieve anything."

What some might call disruption or even trolling, Cox simply calls "poking the bear." And if the bear is Musk, so be it.

"He bought Twitter. He made a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration. He's just the perfect Twitler," Cox says. "But he's not a political figure. I don't give a shit what anybody says. Nobody elected him, and he's got no business being in politics. My wife is worried that somebody's going to come put a bag over my head at night now. But I don't need to be buried as, like, the Twitler guy who made Twitler stuff. It's not my brand. I'm just bullshitting. I'm razzing. I think it's funny.

"Elon Musk would actually be the most hilarious person in the whole world," Cox adds, "if he wasn't totally terrifying."