Kanye West has kept a low profile for much of this year after spending the latter part of 2022 on a bizarre media tour in which he repeatedly made antisemitic remarks that led to the near-total meltdown of his once formidable fashion and music empire, and, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. The spree resulted in West (who now goes by Ye) losing a raft of major endorsements and product deals, as well as being booted from Twitter in December for sharing the since-deleted image of a swastika inside a Star of David.
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That sanction came just two months after Space X/Tesla billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion; last week Musk announced that he was renaming the service “X.” Then, on Saturday, with no warning, West’s account had been restored after the suspension for what the service called at the time an “incitement to violence.”
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At press time it did not appear that West had tweeted about the reinstatement or posted any new content, with the most recent tweets — espousing Ye’s disdain for pornography and support for fashion house Balenciaga — dating to Dec. 1, 2022. Though Billboard has not been able to confirm any details behind the reversal of Ye’s suspension, the news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which also noted that the rapper’s feed will not show any ads and that Ye will not be able to monetize his posts through Musk’s recently announced ad revenue sharing program for creators.
That program promises a cut of ad revenue for those who have a blue or verified mark, at least 15 million impressions within last three months or have at least 500 followers; Kanye’s Twitter feed has 31.6 million followers.
A spokesperson for X had not returned Billboard‘s request for additional comment at press time and Billboard‘s attempts to reach a spokesperson for West were unsuccessful at press time. West’s is not the first controversial account Musk has brought back. The unpredictable entrepreneur and “free speech abolitionist” also reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account last year after the former one-term president was suspended on Jan. 6, 2021 over fears that he might stoke further violence from his followers after their attack on the Capitol in Washington, D.C. that left five dead and hundreds injured.