Elon Musk calls US media ‘racist’ after Dilbert row

Billionaire Elon Musk has called US media “racist” after multiple American newspapers announced they would stop publishing a popular comic strip whose creator called Black people a hate group.

Musk, who owns electric car company Tesla and social network Twitter, tweeted on Sunday in response to an article about a rant by Scott Adams, creator of the long-running “Dilbert” — a satirical take on office life.

“For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians,” Musk wrote on the social network, where he has reinstated users banned for hate speech.

“Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist”.

Under Musk’s leadership, Tesla has been hit with multiple lawsuits alleging racism and researchers say Twitter has seen a rise in hate speech.

Adams, like Musk, has increasingly stoked controversy with his views on social issues.

But a video posted on Wednesday — in which Adams referred to Black people as a “hate group” — proved to be the last straw for many “Dilbert” publishers.

“That’s a hate group and I don’t want anything to do with them,” he said.

The Washington Post said on Saturday it would drop the cartoon from its pages “in light of Scott Adams’s recent statements,” though it was too late to stop the strip from being published in the weekend’s print editions.