GTA — Elon Musk bantered with Kanye West and slammed the Anti-Defamation League this weekend, suggesting there’s no bigotry outlawed free-for-all it seems hopes the platform will become.
The rapper and designer who also goes by Ye was banned from Twitter last month for threaten the Jewsthen released from Twitter jail on November 4 for just one day was banned again the same day after unleashing a new round of anti-Jewish slander.
“Test test to see if my twitter is unblocked,” West said midday Sunday. It’s not clear if Musk, who finalized his purchase of Twitter last month, has accepted West’s return, but about five hours later he appeared to welcome West, chastising his newer name.
“Don’t kill what you hate, save what you love,” Musk said in response to West’s query. West’s next tweet was simply “Shalom,” followed by a smiley emoji.
The exchange came after Musk responded to criticism from ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt with a tweet saying, “Stop defaming me!”
Musk on Friday brought former President Donald Trump back to Twitter after an unscientific poll. Trump has been banned from the platform since January 6, 2021, after his incendiary tweets helped spur deadly riots seeking to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election as president. (Trump for his part He was elated about his restorationSaying he prefers Truth Social, the little social media platform he launched after being banned from Twitter.)
Trump’s restoration drew a rebuke on the platform from Greenblatt, who led efforts by civil rights groups to engage Musk after he purchased the platform to ensure he adhered to restrictions against incitement and harassment.
“For @elonmusk to let Donald Trump back on Twitter, ostensibly after a short poll, shows he’s not even remotely serious about protecting the platform from hate, harassment, and misinformation.” This led to Musk’s vexed response about Greenblatt’s “disfigurement” of him.
Greenblatt’s interactions with Musk appeared to be going well in the beginning. Last month, Greenblatt hailed the industrialist known for reviving space travel and popularizing electric cars as an innovator like no other in a generation. Musk then posted a meeting with the ADL and other civil rights groups to discuss moderating hate speech, antisemitism, and extremism, and said, “Twitter will continue to fight hate, harassment, and enforce election integrity policies.”
But as Musk made the changes, hundreds of employees have been fired or encouraged to quit, including executives responsible for ensuring the platform is free of hate, hateful language and harassment on the site.
Greenblatt Stop Hate For Profit Coalition has started. He called on advertisers to quit Twitter Until Musk makes changes.
But a review of Musk’s latest tweets indicated he was enjoying the free-for-all.
He mocked his critics, saying they were turning a blind eye to Twitter, jokingly said he hoped Twitter would lead to an even bigger dopamine rush and then posted what he had coined as a statement of his philosophy: “The funnier the outcome, the more likely it is.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
