Hours after Kanye “Ye” West tweeted an antisemitic image that included a Swastika inside a star of David, the rapper’s account was suspended. Twitter owner Elon Musk confirmed the suspension around 9 p.m. PT on Thursday.
“I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended,” Musk tweeted.
But in a series of posts to Trump-owned Truth Social shortly after, Ye posted screenshots of the suspension message he received that indicate his suspension will only be for 12 hours. (Update: Ye’s Twitter account was still listed as suspended as of 9 a.m. PT on Friday.)
The suspension caps a disturbing day for the increasingly unhinged, openly antisemitic rapper. Earlier in the day, West appeared on Infowars alongside white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who has become a regular associate of West’s in recent weeks.
During the interview with host Alex Jones, West defended Adolf Hitler and made several antisemitic statements. So many, in fact, that even Jones, a right-wing extremist who among other things engaged in a years-long campaign of harassment against the parents of children murdered in the 2012 masscre in Sandy Hook, Connecicut, became uncomfortable.
Later in the day, West tweeted “YE24 LOVE EVERYONE #Lovespeech,” an apparent reference to his stated intent to run for president in 2024. The tweet was accompanied by an image of a star of David with a Swastika inside it.
Multiple Twitter users reported the tweet. But in what can only be seen as a perfect encapsulation of the trainwreck Twitter has become since Musk bought it, they were informed the image — again, of a literal Swastika in an unmistakably antisemitic context — didn’t violate any of Twitter’s policies.
It appears that eventually, Musk himself personally intervened to have tweet deleted. However, it should be noted that even then no action was otherwise taken against West’s account.
The order of subsequent events is difficult to know with any certainty, but as far as we can tell from reading statements West has since posted on Truth Social, and statements Musk made on Twitter, the two began texting one another about it.
“Sorry, but you have gone too far. This is not love, Musk texted West around 7:33, Pacific time. “Who made you the judge,” West replied.
At that point, West’s account had not yet been suspended and he continued to Tweet for another hour. First, he figured out a way to tweet the antisemitic image a second time, by retweeting a Pop Base tweet that included it. Then he claimed that Kim Kardashian cheated on him with Phoenix Suns star Chris Paul. Then he posted something taunting Musk himself.
At 9:23 p.m., Musk tweeted “FAFO,” an abbreviation of the expression “f— around, find out.”
