Scott Adams, the East Bay cartoonist who became internationally famous for his “Dilbert” comic strip that satirized the absurdity of corporate culture, has died of prostate cancer at age 68, his first ex-wife revealed Tuesday.
In a livestream of the “Real Coffee With Scott Adams” podcast, Shelly Miles said that his death came peacefully, as he was surrounded by loved ones after he had moved into hospice a day or so earlier. Miles also read a final letter he had written, dated Jan. 1, revealing that he was of sound mind and had converted to Christianity after long describing himself as agnostic.
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Scott Adams, creator of the the comic strip, “Dilbert,” is photographed at his home in Pleasanton, California, on Monday, Dec. 4, 2017. Adams recently authored “Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter,” that examines the strategies that Donald Trump used to win the presidency. (Gary Reyes/ Bay Area News Group)
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FROM EARLIER THIS MONTH: ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams doesn’t expect to live much longer
“If you are reading this, things did not go well for me,” Adams, a longtime Pleasanton resident, wrote in his characteristically forthright way. “My body failed before my brain. … Many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I’m not a believer, but I have to admit, the risk reward calculation for doing so looks so attractive to me. So here I go. I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and look forward to spending an eternity with him.
Adams first revealed that he had cancer in May, saying that it was the same form of cancer that President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with. He also revealed that it had metastasized to his bones.
On Truth Social on Tuesday, another U.S. president, Donald Trump, praised Adams as “the great influencer” in American culture. Trump also called the cartoonist a “fantastic guy” because he made the controversial decision to become one of his prominent early supporters in 2015.
Adams, Trump said, “liked and respected me when it wasn’t fashionable to do so. He bravely fought a long battle against a terrible disease. My condolences go out to his family, and all his many friends and listeners.”
Elon Musk also honored Adams on X, posting: “Rest in peace, good and great man, rest in peace.”
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Scott Adams of Dilbert shows how his comic strip is produced at his studio on Wednesday, November 7, 2007, in Dublin, California. ( Susan Tripp Pollard/Contra Costa Times)
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Indeed, as Adams was remembered fondly by legions of fans Tuesday, for a syndicated comic strip that captured white-collar malaise before “Office Space” and “The Office,” he also become a polarizing figure as he became a political pundit who was embraced by right-wing figures and known for his provocative statements about race, culture, troubled teen boys and the 2019 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
His comic strip, started in 1989, appeared in more 2,000 papers at its peak, allowing him to launch a series of bestselling books, a short-lived TV show and lines of merchandise. But it all came crashing down in 2023, when he was dropped by hundreds of newspapers in 2023 after he called Black Americans a “hate group” and said that white people should “just get the hell away” from them. He later defended his remarks as hyperbole.
Scott Adams creator of “Dilbert” tours the Tribune Building and critiques our “cubicle/workspace environment”…..Here Adams sits at Tribune film critic Michael Wilmington’s cubicle and is overwhelmed by clutter.(Tribune photos by Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune)
Adams said his support of Trump was based on the media personality and businessman’s persuasion skills, which Adams said would help him win the presidency. In his book on the 2016 presidential campaign, “Win Bigly,” Adams, a trained hypnotist and “lifelong student of persuasion,” described Trump as the most powerful persuader he has ever observed — atop a list that included Steve Jobs, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Following Trump’s 2016 election victory, Adams’ Twitter following grew by more than 50%, according to the Pleasanton Weekly, his hometown newspaper. But Adams also told this news organization that his admiration for Trump had made him “toxic”: His once-lucrative public speaking career dried up, and he would never be able to realize his yearslong ambition to make a “Dilbert” movie. But even with his support for Trump, Adams insisted that he remained liberal or libertarian on many social issues.
A native of Windham, a small town in upstate New York, Adams initially came to the Bay Area to work in business and finance, first as a teller for Crocker National Bank in San Francisco, where he said he was twice held up at gunpoint. He then worked in various financial and technical roles for Pacific Bell while he earned an MBA at the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley.
His time in the corporate world in the 1980s and early 1990s, and his experience around “engineering groups,” provided ideas for his “Dilbert” comic, which he would wake up to draw at 4 a.m. so that he could put in a full day at his day job. By 1996, “Dilbert” was being published in more than 800 newspapers around the country, and Adams became a full-time cartoonist who had also released his first book, “The Dilbert Principle.”
Scott Adams, famed creator of the comic strip DILBERT stands within “Dilbert’s Ultimate Cubicle” which offers practical and humorous concepts for the future workplace office, Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2001. The cubicle, which includes a hammock, aquarium, rotating floor modules, shoe polisher and a self-timing guest seat, was designed by IDEO, a world leader of innovation and design and was created in response to e-mails Adams has received from disgruntled workers across the country. “Over the years, thousands of DILBERT readers have e-mailed me with gripes about their cubicles. I feel their pain because I served a 16-year sentence in cubicles during my corporate career,” said Adams. (AP Photo/Bob Riha Jr.)
“Dilbert” became one of the “heavy-hitters” in the world of syndicated cartoons — along with “Garfield,” “Peanuts” and “The Far Side,” according to the Washington Post. Adams also became famous for being one of the first cartoonists to include his email address in all his drawings, which allowed fans to write in and suggest new ideas for his comic strip. In 1998, he received the National Cartoonists Society’s esteemed Reuben Award as outstanding cartoonist.
Adams also was a well-known figure in the Tri-Valley area. He first lived in Dublin, then permanently settled in Pleasanton, where he built himself a spacious 7,000-square-foot mansion that reportedly included a Dilbert-shaped wall, an indoor basketball court and an acre-large backyard. For a time, he also owned Stacey’s Cafe in downtown Pleasanton.
In his final statement, Adams said he wanted to explain “my life.” He said, “For the first part of my life, I was focused on making myself a worthy husband and parent as I find as a way to find meaning that worked. But marriages don’t always last forever, and mine eventually ended in a highly amicable way.”
Adams first married Shelly Miles in 2006, and became a stepfather to her two children, Savannah and Justin, the latter of whom died of a fentanyl overdose in 2018 at age 18. The couple divorced in 2014, and Adams said the two remained friends. In 2020, Adams married Kristina Basham, a model and baker. But Adams announced in 2022 that that the two were divorcing.
East Bay creator/artist Scott Adams works on his Dilbert comic strip on his computer in his home office in Dublin, Calif. on Wednesday, March 25, 2009. The Dilbert comic strip celebrates its 20th anniversary this spring. (Dan Honda/Staff)
In his final statement, Adams said he always tried to look “for ways I could add the most to people’s life one way or another.” He said he did so by evolving from cartoonist to author of what he hoped “would be useful books” on various topics, including religion and self-improvement, to help readers reframe “their thoughts to make their personal and professional lives better.”
“By then, I believe I had enough life lessons that I could start passing them on,” he said. Adams was a regular daily presence on social media and started podcasting with his live show, then called “Coffee With Scott Adams,” in 2108. He said his show was “dedicated to helping people think about the world and their lives in a more productive way. ”
“I didn’t plan it this way, but it ended up helping lots of lonely people find a community that made them less lonely again, that had great meaning to me,” he said. “I had an amazing life.”
This story is developing.
