The rapper and fashion designer, 45, sparked controversy after he appeared at his Yeezy brand fashion show in Paris wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words “White Lives Matter,” a common inversion employed by white supremacists as well as general opponents of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Amid the backlash, West shared a screenshot of what appeared to be a text message exchange with Sean “Diddy” Combs, in which he responded to the rap mogul’s objection to his stunt by stating that he would “show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.”
After West’s since-removed post led to his Instagram account being restricted last week, the musician took his messaging to Twitter.
“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” West posted. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
West, who shares four children with ex-wife Kim Kardashian, appeared to use “death con 3” in reference to the U.S. military defense alert state known as DEFCON. West was subsequently locked out of his Twitter account for violating the platform’s policies.
After welcoming West back to Twitter following an extended absence, Musk returned to comment under one of West’s remaining posts on Monday, writing: “Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart.”
The Tesla CEO’s response to West’s post led to backlash on Twitter, particularly as the multi-billionaire—who is proceeding with his purchase of Twitter after a months-long legal battle—has spoken of prioritizing free speech on the platform.
Given Musk’s expressed desire to make the social media space less censored, a number of detractors questioned how tenable his method of dealing with definitively offensive Twitter posts would be once he takes over the platform.
Entrepreneur and author John Battelle commented: “Ah this must be it. Elon Musk is going to do all content moderation personally. I’m sure that scales.”
British author and podcaster Musa Okwonga pointed out the combined follower counts that West and Musk have while handling such offensive messaging.
“Kanye West sends a violently antisemitic tweet and Musk gives this lukewarm response,” said Okwonga. “Because these accounts have the combined following of over 130 million, this sadly isn’t a discourse we can simply ignore. It’s enabling hate and ignorance at a huge scale.”
“I for one am now confident this whole situation is under control,” quipped author Caitlin Moran.
U.S.-born British comedian David Baddiel, author of Jews Don’t Count, tweeted in response to Musk’s post: “Strong ‘just…tone it down a bit, mate’ vibes.”
Baddiel further told Newsweek that he was concerned about Musk’s “softly-softly” approach to West’s widely condemned tweet.
“I thought the general reaction to Kanye’s tweet was in a small way heartening,” Baddiel said. “My position as the writer of Jews Don’t Count is that in general the progressive community don’t see offence against Jews as worthy of reaction to quite the same level as that against other minorities, and that is partly because of a notion —exampled in Kanye’s tweet—that Jews are powerful and privileged and not in need of the protections afforded other minorities in the modern world of identity politics.
“Kanye’s tweet was standard in that he clearly saw himself not as being racist but punching up, as people often do attacking Jews, with talk of global agendas and trying to control etc etc. But I think the dial is shifting on this a bit, and I was cheered that many people including Black Twitter weighed in against him in a way that was more reactive against antisemitism than perhaps used to be the case.”
“However, I’d say Musk’s tweet is much more Jews Don’t Count-y,” Baddiel went on. “Because it sounds entirely like Elon didn’t want to upset his mate and just gave him—well, not even a slap on the wrist—more like a kind of ‘maybe tone it a down a bit?’
“This may of course just be in tune with Elon’s general laissez-faire approach to offence on the platform, and I can’t judge that as he doesn’t own it yet. But I would be pretty amazed if this kind of softly-softly approach was ever adopted in reaction to, say, a very famous white person saying something equally negative and stereotypical about Kanye’s identity.”
Newsweek has reached out to representatives of Musk and West for comment.
