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News World Americas Elon Musk responds to Kanye West calling him ‘half-Chinese’ and a ‘genetic hybrid’ Musk suspended West from Twitter last week after he posted a picture of a swastika inside the Star of David
Elon Musk says there’s a ‘significant' risk someone will try to kill him Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
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Your support makes all the difference. Read more The war of words between Elon Musk and Kanye West is showing no signs of abating, with the Twitter boss mockingly claiming that he takes the antisemitic rapper’s latest attack as a “compliment”.
West, who was banned from Twitter for posting a Nazi symbol last week, branded Musk a “genetic hybrid” and suggested he is “half-Chinese” on Instagram on Sunday.
In the bizarre rambling post, the disgraced star also took aim at former president Barack Obama , referring to an outrageous conspiracy theory that he is a clone of an Egyptian pharaoh.
“Am I the only one who thinks Elon could be half-Chinese? Have you ever seen his pics as a child? Take a Chinese genius and mate them with a South African super model and we have an Elon,” West wrote.
“I say an Elon because they probably made 10 to 30 Elon’s and he’s the first genetic hybrid that stuck… Well, let’s not forget about Obama.”
He continued: “I’m sorry for using curse words in church but I don’t have another word for Obama yet.”
Hours later, Musk responded to a tweet where a social media account wrote: “KANYE WEST SAYS HE BELIEVES ELON MUSK IS A HALF-CHINESE ‘GENETIC HYBRID.’”
“I take that as a compliment!” the tech billionaire replied.
The back and forth continued as West, also known as Ye, shared a screenshot of Musk’s response and claimed his comments had always been intended to be complimentary.
“It was meant as a compliment my friend Now Obama on the other hand…..” he wrote.
The ongoing spat comes after Musk suspended West from Twitter for posting a Nazi symbol inside the Star of David in what marks the latest in a growing list of antisemitic actions from the rapper.
West posted the offensive tweet on Thursday night, then posted a photo of a topless Musk on a yacht, writing: “Let’s always remember this as my final tweet.”
Musk responded to the image of himself saying “that is fine” but replied “this is not” to West’s swastika tweet.
The disgraced rapper was then suspended from the platform for violating Twitter’s policy against inciting violence, with Musk telling his followers: “I tried my best.
“Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended,” he tweeted, adding in a follow-up tweet that it had nothing to do with the photo of him on a yacht.
Instead, he joked that he found the “unflattering” topless photo of himself “helpful motivation to lose weight”.
“Just clarifying that his account is being suspended for incitement to violence, not an unflattering pic of me being hosed by Ari,” he tweeted.
“Frankly, I found those pics to be helpful motivation to lose weight!”
Behind the scenes, the two men also appeared to be getting into a spat, with West sharing screenshots of messages he had apparently received from Musk through Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social.
“Sorry, but you have gone too far. This is not love,” Musk apparently told him.
“Who made you the judge,” West fired back, before sharing a screenshot of his account now suspended.
But, Musk had the last word, making a final dig at West in his last tweet for the day.
“FAFO,” he simply wrote, meaning “F*** Around and Find Out”.
On Sunday, Musk revealed that he had wanted to “punch” West over the swastika tweet.
“I personally wanted to punch Kanye, so that was definitely inciting me to violence. That’s not cool,” he said in a live Q&A on Twitter Spaces.
The Twitter suspension came just hours after West said “I like Hitler” and praised the Nazis for doing “good things” in a disturbing appearance on Alex Jones’ Infowars show alongside white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Wearing a black mask over his face, West told the far-right conspiracy theorist that he sees “good things about Hitler” – who was responsible for the mass murder of around six million Jews in the Holocaust – and claimed that the reason “you can’t say [it] out loud” is because “Jewish people” have told people not to.
“I am done with the classifications. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler,” he said.
He continued, saying “I like Hitler” even after Jones told him that he was not a fan of the German dictator or the Nazis.
West then went on to say that the Nazis “did good things too” and that “we’ve got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time”.
West – who has a history of bipolar disorder – has recently been spewing antisemitic comments and aligning himself with far-right figures and white nationalists like Mr Fuentes.
As a result, he has been dropped by several brands in recent weeks including Adidas, GAP and Balenciaga.
Last week, West and Mr Fuentes dined with Mr Trump at Mar-a-Lago leading to several top Republicans also condemning the former president for his association with the controversial figures.
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