Elon Musk accuses media of racism after Dilbert creator Scott Adams dropped

Scott Adams's comic strip, Dilbert, is known for its satirical office humour

Elon Musk accused US media of racism on Sunday as he waded into the debate over racist comments made by Dilbert cartoon creator Scott Adams on YouTube last week.

Twitter's CEO tweeted media that used to be racist against non-whites is now "racist against whites & Asians".

In the video, Mr Adams, who is white, said black Americans were part of a "hate group" and white people should "get the hell away" from them.

Several US outlets dropped the cartoon over the weekend in response.

In the same tweet, Mr Musk continued to allege that "elite colleges & high schools in America" are also racist.

Dilbert has been a mainstay of the funny pages of America's newspapers since 1989. It features a put-upon office worker and a talking dog, who together take aim at the fads of corporate culture.

Dilbert's distributor is also severing ties with Mr Adams, the company announced on Twitter. While Andrews McMeel Universal values free speech, the company said, they ''will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate".

A new Dilbert book to be published in September was also dropped,The Wall Street Journal reported. Portfolio, one of Penguin Random House's imprints, says it will not publish Mr Adams' upcoming book, "Reframe Your Brain".

Mr Adams says his career is destroyed and most of his income will be gone by next week after The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and other publications dropped the popular cartoon.

Among media outlets to drop the Dilbert cartoon strip are the USA Today network, which operates dozens of of newspapers across the US.

Mr Adams writes and illustrates the comic. His comments, widely viewed as encouraging segregation, were made in response to a survey conducted by the firm Rasmussen Reports. Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the phrase: "It's OK to be white."

The phrase is believed to have emerged in 2017 as a trolling campaign and has since been used by white supremacists.

According to the poll, 53% of black respondents agreed with the statement, but 26% disagreed and others were not sure.

Mr Adams called those who disagreed with the phrase part of a "hate group".

"I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people," Mr Adams said, "because there is no fixing this."

Darrin Bell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning black cartoonist, described Mr Adams as a disgrace, but not unique. "His racism is not even unique among cartoonists," he said in The New York Times.

There has been an influx of hate speech on Twitter since Mr Musk's takeover of the social platform in October, The Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Defamation League reports.

Correction 13th April 2023: This article originally stated that Elon Musk defended Scott Adams and has been amended to make clear that Mr Musk's comment was in fact about the media, in direct response to a tweet criticising media coverage of what Scott Adams said.