It’s been eight months since musician and designer Ye, who once went by Kanye West, was banned from the social media platform then known as Twitter for posting an image of a swastika inside the Star of David. But now he’s free to return to the struggling company, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday night, the latest in a long line of problematic figures that have been welcomed back to the company that now goes by the name X.
This isn’t the first time Ye has been re-embraced by the platform after an outburst. Last October, Ye’s account was temporarily restricted—not banned, as was widely reported at the time—after he tweeted that he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” After Elon Musk completed his acquisition of the company later that same month, he noted that Ye’s account had been restored prior to his purchase of the business, but the artist remained silent on the platform, perhaps due to a nascent plan to purchase competing social network Parler
But by December, the Parler deal was dead, and Ye was back on Twitter. But after Ye posted the swastika image, Musk publicly suspended his account, saying then that Ye “again violated our rule against incitement to violence.”
A lot has happened at Musk’s company since then, including a rapid fall into “heavy debt,” the reinstatement of previously banned right-wing and QAnon figures, and a confounding name change to “X” that’s elicited wide-ranging scorn.
Similarly, Ye appears to have turned over a new leaf when it comes to his antisemitism, announcing in March that “Watching Jonah Hill in 21 Jump street made me like Jewish people again.” (Hill has since faced his own scandals, including allegations of emotional abuse and sexual misconduct.)
Since then, reports the WSJ, X was told that if reinstated, Ye promised “that he wouldn’t use the platform to share antisemitic or otherwise harmful language.” His access to his account was restored Saturday night, an unnamed source told the paper.
But unlike far-right influencers such as alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate, Ye will not be allowed to monetize his posts, the WSJ reports. Nor will advertisements appear next to his posts, as they do next to the posts of most other users.
All this is academic, however, if Ye chooses not to tweet. That’s the decision his friend, former President Donald Trump, made when Musk restored his account last year following a tweeted poll. Instead, Trump chose to remain on Truth Social, a social network with which he had an exclusivity deal.
“They have a lot of problems,” Trump said of Twitter when his ban was reversed. ”You see what’s going on. It may make it, it may not make it.” As of publication time, neither Trump nor Ye have exercised their renewed option to tweet.