Twitter CEO Elon Musk defends Dilbert creator's racist tirade

Elon Musk accused US media of racism on Monday, defending racist comments made by Dilbert cartoon creator Scott Adams on YouTube last week.

Twitter's CEO tweeted that media was once racist against non-whites, but ''now they're 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.

US outlets dropped the cartoon in response.

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

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 newspapers.

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 in The New York Times.