Scott Adams, the US cartoonist behind the widely read comic strip “Dilbert”, passed away at 68. His former wife Shelly Miles announced his death during an online stream, where she also read a final message from Adams.
Who was Scott Adams?
Adams became a household name by turning everyday workplace frustration into sharp comedy. His strip “Dilbert”, was launched in 1989, followed by a mild-mannered engineer navigating office politics, corporate nonsense, and micromanagement. The satire stuck a chord through the 1990s and beyond, helping “Dilbert” run for decades and become one of the most widely famous and circulated strips in the US at its peak, as per a Reuters report. According to the AFP report, it was published in 2,000 newspapers internationally at its peak popularity.
In recent years, Adams also built a separate public identity as a political commentator and a vocal supporter of Donald Trump, whom he campaigned for before Trump’s 2016 election victory.
Who was Dilbert, and why did the strip become so popular?
The central character, Dilbert, is portrayed as an engineer with glasses and a consistently bent tie, an everyman figure representing millions of office workers. The strip mocks “cubicle farm” life in corporate America, Reuters stated, using workplace absurdity as its central theme. That simple setup of ordinary employees trapped in irrational systems made the comic relatable across the world.
Cancer battle, Trump link and the 2023 controversy
Adams first disclosed in May 2025 that he was suffering from metastatic cancer, mentioning in his video that he had only a few months to live, as per a Reuters report. He later documented his deteriorating condition online and publicly urged Trump for help in seeking treatment from his healthcare provider, Kaiser Permanente of Northern California. He also requested to reschedule the targeted radiotherapy drug Pluvicto. Trump replied “On it” in a November 2 social media post, and Adams responded the next day that he would begin receiving Pluvicto the following day, Reuters added.
After Adams’s death, Trump posted a tribute on Truth Social. In the post, Trump mentioned, “Sadly the Great influencer, Scott Adams, has passed away …He bravely fought a long battle against a terrible disease…He will be truly missed. God Bless you Scott!’
Adams’s mainstream newspaper presence had already taken a major hit in 2023 when many papers dropped him after a racist rant. A Reuters report mentioned that Adams referred to Black Americans as a “hate group”. He also made remarks appealing to white Americans to stay away from Black people.