Twitter on Saturday reinstated the account of controversial rapper Kanye West, nearly eight months after it was suspended after West had violated the platform's rules prohibiting incitement to violence, Reuters reported.
West’s account now shows his last post from December 1, a day prior to when his account was suspended after he posted an image of a swastika inside a Star of David.
West won't be eligible to monetize his account on Twitter, which this week changed its logo to X, and advertisements won't appear next to his posts, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Twitter owner Elon Musk said following the December suspension of West that it was his decision to suspend the rapper.
"Because at a certain point, you have to say what is incitement to violence," Musk said. "Because that is against the law in the US, you can't just have a 'let's go murder someone club,' that's not actually legal."
"It is important people know, okay, that was my decision," Musk added, before noting that the context surrounding West’s tweet helped him make the suspension decision.
West’s suspension from Twitter came after he made antisemitic remarks during an interview with Alex Jones of Infowars. In that interview, the rapper said he “loves everyone,” including Jews, as well as Nazis, spoke favorably of Hitler and denied the Holocaust.
His Twitter account had been suspended by Twitter’s previous leadership after he threatened to go "death con 3 on the Jews" in an antisemitic rant on the social media site. West followed this up by claiming that he can't be antisemitic "because black people are actually Jew."
Musk reinstated West’s account shortly after he took over Twitter.
According to a person familiar with the matter, Saturday’s reinstatement of West’s account was made possible after the social media company received reassurance that he wouldn't use the platform to share antisemitic or otherwise harmful language.