Elon Musks Calls US Schools, Media 'Racist' In Defense Of Dilbert Creator's Racially Charged Rant

Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Twitter and Tesla, called the mainstream media racist on Sunday in defense of "Dilbert" comic strip creator Scott Adams' racist tirade in which he said that white people should "get the hell away from Black people."

Musk showed his support for Adams in a series of tweets Sunday, offering no criticisms of Adams' remarks and instead sharing his belief that "For a *very* long time, US media was racist against nonwhite people, now they're racist against whites & Asians."

"Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America," Musk wrote. "Maybe they can try not being racist."

Last week on his YouTube show, Adams called Black Americans a "hate group" and suggested that White people should "get the hell away" from them. His comments were in response to a poll from right-leaning Rasmussen that said 53% of Black Americans agreed with the statement, "It's OK to be White."

The phrase referenced in the poll has been labeled a "hate slogan" by the Anti-Defamation League due to its association with white nationalist movements. In his video, Adams called Black people who disapproved of the phrase a "hate group."

The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, were among the newspapers to cancel Adams' longtime cartoon "Dilbert."

Later into the discourse, Musk agreed with a tweet saying Adams' comments "weren't good" but relinquished an "element of truth" in them. Musk followed this admittance by suggesting that media organizations promote a "false narrative" by giving more coverage to unarmed Black victims of police violence than they do to white victims.

Musk's views on social issues have been increasingly scrutinized since his $44 billion Twitter acquisition in October.

Musk has softened Twitter's policies against hate speech and stripped its content moderation team of much of its oversight while erasing his promise to create a content moderation council that would include representatives from multiple civil rights groups.

Twitter has since been struck with an exodus of advertisers, with as much as one-third of the app's top advertisers abandoning the company upon the arrival of Musk. Twitter has also been the victim of rampant cost-cutting measures, including its latest round of layoffs over the weekend, which saw the release of another 200 employees.