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Scott Adams helped define modern office humor through Dilbert, a comic strip that captured corporate life with sharp, often relatable satire.
His death closes the chapter on a career that mixed major pop-culture influence with a deeply polarizing public downfall in recent years.

With inputs from Reuters

A career built on office satire

Scott Adams, the creator of the long-running comic strip Dilbert, has died at the age of 68. His former wife, Shelly Miles, confirmed the news during an online livestream.

In that broadcast, Miles shared a final message from Adams, who became famous for turning the frustrations of corporate work culture into daily punchlines.

Dilbert first appeared in 1989 and quickly grew into a cultural staple, especially among office workers who saw their own workplace absurdities mirrored in its panels.

The strip’s main character, an engineer with round glasses and a tie that always seemed slightly off, became a recognizable symbol of cubicle life across the United States.

Health battle made public in his final months

Adams revealed in May 2025 that he had metastatic prostate cancer. He shared the diagnosis on his video program, Coffee with Scott Adams, telling viewers the disease was advanced and that he believed he had only months left.

From that point forward, Adams regularly posted about his declining health. His updates, shared across social media, documented both the medical realities and the emotional weight of living with a terminal illness in public view.

According to the report, Adams also sought access to a specific targeted radiotherapy drug called Pluvicto.

Direct appeal to Trump over treatment access

In a striking turn, Adams publicly urged President Donald Trump to intervene with Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, asking for help getting his treatment scheduled.

Trump responded to Adams in a November 2 social media post, writing that he was working on it. Soon after, Adams posted that he would begin receiving Pluvicto the following day.

The episode drew attention not only because of Adams’ high profile, but because it highlighted how even well-known public figures sometimes struggle with healthcare access and timing during serious illness.

Trump’s public tribute after Adams’ death

After Adams’ passing was confirmed, Trump acknowledged it in a message posted on Truth Social.

In his statement, Trump described Adams as an influential figure who supported him even when it was unpopular, and praised his fight against cancer.

The tribute reflected the public bond Adams had built with conservative audiences in recent years, particularly through his political commentary and online presence.

‘Dilbert’ at its peak and its collapse

For decades, Dilbert was one of the most widely syndicated comic strips in the country. At its height, it appeared in major newspapers nationwide and became a defining feature of workplace humor.

But Adams’ standing in mainstream media dramatically shifted in 2023, when many newspapers dropped the strip after remarks he made in a video posted to YouTube sparked backlash.

The controversy triggered an industry-wide retreat from the comic, with publishers cutting ties amid widespread criticism.

The 2023 remarks that ended widespread syndication

The fallout stemmed from comments in which Adams referred to Black Americans as a “hate group” and suggested white Americans should distance themselves from Black people.

His remarks came as he reacted to a poll promoted by a conservative organization. The poll purported to show that a significant number of African Americans did not believe it was acceptable to be white.

After facing intense condemnation, Adams later claimed his statements were meant as hyperbole. He also said he opposed racism and argued that news coverage failed to include what he viewed as the full context.

Even with those clarifications, the backlash proved lasting, and the professional consequences were immediate.

Public reaction: Musk defends Adams

The controversy did not unfold quietly. Billionaire Elon Musk publicly defended Adams during the backlash and accused the media of displaying bias against white and Asian people.

Musk’s comments became part of the wider public debate surrounding Adams, one that extended beyond the comic strip itself and into the culture-war arguments dominating American public life.

Supporters framed Adams as a target of selective outrage, while critics saw his remarks as disqualifying and harmful, especially coming from a widely distributed public figure.

Impact on his legacy and public image

Adams’ death arrives with his legacy split into two stark halves.

On one side is Dilbert, a comic that resonated for decades because it understood workplace power dynamics, bad bosses, pointless meetings, corporate doublespeak, and employee burnout, long before those themes became everyday internet language.

On the other side is the reality that Adams’ later public persona, shaped by political commentary and controversy, overtook the comic itself in the public conversation.

For many readers, Dilbert will remain a defining artifact of late-20th-century office culture.

For others, the final years of Adams’ career will be inseparable from the backlash that followed his remarks, and the way his public influence shifted away from humor and toward political identity.

What his death signals for ‘Dilbert’ and workplace satire

With Adams gone, the future of Dilbert as a mainstream newspaper staple is effectively closed. The strip’s long run had already been weakened by its removal from many publications in 2023.

Still, the larger genre Adams helped popularize, workplace satire, will continue, even if the platform changes.

Modern office humor now thrives on social media, podcasts, and digital creators rather than newspaper comics. Yet the themes Adams built his career on remain relevant: burnout, bureaucracy, corporate hypocrisy, and the daily absurdity of professional life.

In that sense, Dilbert may endure less as an active brand and more as a cultural reference point that influenced how workplace comedy is written today.

A complicated ending to a highly visible life

Adams spent his final months in a way few public figures do: openly describing the reality of terminal illness, while also remaining part of political conversation and online debate.

His story combined several modern forces, celebrity, polarization, social media influence, and public health struggles, into a single narrative that drew attention even from the White House.

His death is likely to renew debates about how society judges public figures: whether creative legacy can stand apart from personal controversy, and how much later actions reshape what came before.

A cultural figure remembered in two eras

Scott Adams will be remembered as the cartoonist who turned office frustration into a national language of humor, and as a public personality whose later controversies redefined how many viewed his work.

His career shows how quickly public reputation can change, especially in the digital age, where a single moment can outweigh decades of success.

As tributes and criticism continue to surface, the lasting takeaway may be this: Adams left behind a comic that captured corporate America with rare precision, even as his own public life became far more divisive than the world he once mocked.

 

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