Billionaire Elon Musk came to the defense of Dilbert creator Scott Adams after Adams's recent racist rant resulted in his getting dropped from newspapers.
Media outlets made the decision to drop Adams' longtime comic strip from circulation after Adams called Black people “a hate group” and advised White people to “get the hell away” from them because of his belief Blacks are inherently racist against Whites.
Musk tweeted, “What exactly are they complaining about?” in response to the cartoonist's post about newspapers dropping his long-running strip.
Musk later deleted the tweet but why he did so is still unclear.
You can see it below.
@ScottAdamsSays/Twitter; @elonmusk/Twitter
Not long afterward, Musk criticized the media for being "racist" in its reporting of Adams' citing a recent Rasmussen poll which found that 53 percent of the Black respondents agreed with the statement “It’s okay to be white."
Musk, responding to the conservative-aligned Twitter account Monitoring Bias—which claims to provide "unwoke" analysis of data regarding "culture wars and institutional bias against white and Asian people in America"—wrote:
"The media is racist."
"For a very long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they're racist against whites [and] Asians. Same thing happened with elite colleges [and] high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist."
You can see Musk's response below.
@monitoringbias/Twitter; @elonmusk/Twitter
Musk never outright condemned Adams' remarks and his efforts to scrub his responses from Twitter did not go unnoticed.
Many have criticized Musk for defending the Dilbert creator and suggested he still holds racist views he internalized growing up in apartheid-era South Africa.
\u201cPlease keep in mind @elonmusk gets BILLIONS from the OUR TAX DOLLARS in the form of TAX CREDITS to buy his vehicles, state tax subsidies and support and we won't even discuss how NASA fully funds him.\nTHIS is how WHITE SUPREMACY maintains it's power\nhttps://t.co/GzzRSNSbd0\u201d— Black Authority (@Black Authority) 1677457339
\u201cElon, you don\u2019t understand racism, American history or people except how to exploit them for your personal profit. @elonmusk \n\nhttps://t.co/tX3vrGsL4W\u201d— Larry Charles (@Larry Charles) 1677516150
\u201cI am shocked, SHOCKED! I tell you that an apartheid baby would say this! https://t.co/NJx2k38EW3\u201d— Daryle Lamont Jenkins (@Daryle Lamont Jenkins) 1677508146
\u201cYou can take the boy out of apartheid but you can't take the apartheid out of the boy. @elonmusk UGH\n\nhttps://t.co/p7RMyCnMhB\u201d— Caro \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf2\ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddf7 (@Caro \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf2\ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddf7) 1677506798
\u201cFrom a guy whose family were privileged white South Africans during apartheid.\n\nSupporting a white guy who claims Black Americans are "a hate group" targeting white people.\n\nBecause white people are clearly the U.S. group *most* affected by racism. Pfffft.\nhttps://t.co/17NTACRWH3\u201d— John Voelcker (@John Voelcker) 1677502978
\u201cMusk thinks the mainstream media which is run by white people is racist against white people. \n\nElon Musk Calls U.S. Media Racist Over \u2018Dilbert\u2019 Comic Strip Backlash https://t.co/npbrmOaylC\u201d— Victoria Brownworth (@Victoria Brownworth) 1677513741
\u201cI\u2019m glad media outlets are dropping @ScottAdamsSays for clearly being horrifically racist. \n\nI\u2019m unsurprised and disgusted by Elon defending his behavior. \n\nhttps://t.co/V7j98CCtiW\u201d— Yuh-Line Niou (@Yuh-Line Niou) 1677444539
Adams continues to face heavy blowback for his remarks.
Andrews McMeel Universal (AMU)—the longtime distributor for Dilbert—announced it was cutting ties to Adams and his strip because of incompatible “vision and principles” after Adams' issued his remarks.
AMU said it "values free speech" and is "proud to promote and share many different voices and perspectives" but said it "will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate," adding that Adams' comments about race “do not align with our core values.”