Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) thanked Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Friday for “standing up against” antisemitism with his decision to suspend Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, from the social media platform.
“You were right to take this decisive action to prevent acts of violence and hate crimes against the Jewish community that could have been motivated by these disgusting comments and posts on your platform,” Scott said in a letter to Musk.
Musk suspended the rapper’s Twitter account on Friday morning after he posted an image of the Star of David containing a swastika. Ye’s post followed his Thursday appearance on Infowars in which he praised Adolf Hitler and Nazis in an antisemitic rant.
“I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence,” Musk said in a tweet. “Account will be suspended.”
The billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX took over Twitter in late October, promising to make major changes to the platform’s content moderation. As a self-described “free speech absolutist,” Musk had vowed to bring back several suspended accounts, including those of Ye and former President Trump.
Scott commended Musk’s approach in Friday’s letter, saying it shows he is “committed to standing up for free speech and making an appropriate distinction between hate speech and speech that doesn’t align with the woke values of Big Tech.”
Musk has helmed a chaotic transition at Twitter since finalizing his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company. The billionaire laid off half of the company’s workforce in his first week and lost several hundred more employees to mass resignations last month.
Advertisers have also fled the platform amid concerns about the changes to content moderation, leaving Musk warning of “dire” economic conditions at the company and potential bankruptcy.