Twitter Suspends Kanye West After Swastika Tweet for ‘Incitement to Violence,’ Musk Says
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Elon Musk kicked Kanye West off Twitter after the rapper-entrepreneur tweeted an image of a Nazi swastika embedded inside the Star of David.
Musk, the mega-billionaire who bought Twitter about a month ago, said late Thursday that West’s account was suspended for “incitement to violence.” West’s boot from Twitter, where he had more than 32 million followers, came after he unleashed a string of bizarre and antisemitic tweets Thursday evening, including the swastika image with the text “YE24 LOVE EVERYONE #LOVESPEECH.”
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West’s seemingly final tweetstorm came after he appeared earlier in the day on Alex Jones’ Infowars show, where West praised Adolf Hitler and made antisemitic remarks. Shortly after that, Parler announced that West’s deal to buy the social network had been terminated. West, who now goes by the name “Ye,” has previously claimed he lost $2 billion in business deals over his hateful anti-Jewish comments, including losing his Adidas deal. Ye has claimed he will run for president of the United States in 2024.
For Musk, a self-professed “free-speech absolutist,” West’s swastika post was clearly too much. West, in a Twitter post captioned “Well everyone We had a nice run Jesus is King,” shared what was purportedly a text exchange with Musk, in which Musk had said about the image, “Sorry, but you have gone too far. This is not love.” According to a screenshot of the conversation, West responded, “Who made you the judge.” Twitter removed that tweet and West’s original swastika post prior to the suspension of the @kanyewest account.
West subsequently posted a photo of Musk on a luxury yacht in Greece getting sprayed with a hose by Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel. West wrote, “Let’s always remember this as my final tweet #ye24.” To that Musk replied, “That is fine” but responded “This is not,” apparently in reply to West’s now-deleted tweet with the swastika image.
In a follow-up tweet, Musk wrote, “Just clarifying that [West’s] account is being suspended for incitement to violence, not an unflattering pic of me being hosed by Ari.” The tech mogul also wrote, “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”
West had been motivated to buy Parler, announcing the deal in October 2022, after he was temporarily suspended from Twitter and Instagram. In the post that led to his account’s prior suspension by Twitter, West said “I’m going death con [sic] 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE” and said he had been “toyed with” by Jewish people, whom he claimed have “tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.” Last month Musk had welcomed West back to the social platform. “Don’t kill what ye hate. Save what ye love,” Musk tweeted at West on Nov. 20.
For now, West’s account on Meta’s Instagram, where he has 18.5 million followers, appears to remain active. His Parler account, which has 55,900 followers, and an account on Donald Trump’s Truth Social (13,900 followers) also remain live.
Before Twitter suspended him, West also had tweeted a printout of his tweet that said, “I love the first amendment! Long live Ye! I pray to Jesus that Elon is for real…” — which appeared to have been signed by Alex Jones. West’s post was captioned “Jesus is King.” In reply to that, Musk wrote, “Jesus taught love, kindness and forgiveness. I used to think that turning the other cheek was weak & foolish, but I was the fool for not appreciating its profound wisdom.”
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