Eight months after being banned from Twitter for a series of offensive tweets, Kanye West has had his account on the social media platform reinstated by Elon Musk.
Twitter owner Musk, who recently rebranded the platform as X, lifted the ban on Ye's account despite pulling him from the platform back in December 2022, after the rapper posted several anti-Semitic tweets.
West's last post is now shown from December 2, 2022 - the day before his account was suspended. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, via Sky News, the Yeezy designer will not be able to monetize posts, nor will advertisements appear next to them either.
Ye's account had initially been reinstated two months prior to his December ban, after he shared posts showing a swastika inside the Star of David just hours after praising Adolf Hitler and making anti-Semitic comments during an interview with infamous conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
X has reportedly received reassurances that no such content will be posted by Ye on the platform going forward, a person familiar with the matter explained, although the social media platform did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.
Musk has heralded himself as a bastion of free speech, which he has actively encouraged since his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, now X, in 2022. He reinstated Donald Trump's account on the platform after conducting a poll that generated 14.8 million votes, with 51% voting for the former Apprentice host's reinstatement.
And while Trump has opted instead to stick to his own Truth Social platform and not return to X, it is unclear as to whether West will decide to once again become a prolific poster on the platform, with his past including a litany of controversial posts. His most recent tweets were aimed at canceling cancel culture and supporting the fashion label Balenciaga, following the backlash against their Christmas 2022 campaign in which they had children modeling plush teddy bears that were adorned in BDSM gear.
"I stand by Balenciaga and denounce all witch hunts and I cancel cancel culture. Jesus is King. Ending trafficking doesn't start or end with a fashion campaign for Christ Sake," Ye tweeted on December 2, 2022. This was a follow-up to a previous tweet from earlier that same day in which he wrote: "God loves Balenciaga. Love is the answer. Jesus is the answer. Praying for all of the innocent artist and beautiful humans who make clothing that had nothing to do with the adds. Peoples grandmothers work there for Christ sake".
Since his anti-Semitic outbursts, West has been dropped by Adidas, who he had designed his Yeezy sneakers for. Forbes estimated that the loss of this deal cost West roughly $400 million.
While public appearances by the rapper and producer have been kept to a minimum this year, Ye was reported to have married Australian architect Bianca Censori, who worked as a designer on the Yeezy brand, in a private January ceremony in Beverly Hills.