WASHINGTON, (AFP) – X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, has reinstated rapper and designer Kanye West around eight months after his account was suspended, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Last fall, West posted an image that appeared to show a swastika interlaced with a Star of David, and tycoon Elon Musk suspended the artist from the platform, which he had bought weeks earlier.
Musk at the time labelled West’s post as an “incitement to violence”.
X’s press office did not immediately respond to a query about West’s account. By late evening, West had yet to post anything new. West, who now goes professionally as Ye, assured the platform he would not use his account to share offensive content or use harmful language, the Journal said.
The offensive remarks by West last year cost him heavily in lost business deals. Adidas cut ties with him after a nearly decade-long partnership, abandoning his Yeezy-branded sneakers.
In May, the German company said the end of its highly successful collaboration with West hit sales by about EUR400 million (USD441 million) in the first quarter of the year.
Gap and Balenciaga also cut ties with the rapper and designer. Since Musk bought Twitter for USD44 billion last October, he has fired thousands of employees and cut moderation of content.
In December, he reinstated former president Donald Trump’s Twitter account although Trump has yet to return to the platform.
A week ago, Musk and his newly hired chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, announced the rebranding of Twitter as X and said it would become an “everything app” that would allow users to handle all their finances as well as socialising.
Musk also killed off the Twitter logo, replacing the world-recognised blue bird with a white X.
