On the heels of scandals regarding comments about Black Lives Matter and Jews, Kanye West is planning put capital behind what he says is the right of conservatives to freely express themselves.
And in so doing, the rapper, record producer and fashion designer pits himself against Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
On Oct. 17, West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, said that he had inked a deal to buy conservative social media platform Parler. Terms weren't disclosed.
Named after the French word "to speak," the platform was started in 2018 as a "no censorship" alternative to mainstream platforms like Twitter Twitter and Facebook (META).
Sign-ups spiked during the 2020 presidential election and the platform continued to attract not just President Donald Trump's supporters but a range of conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists.
After it emerged that those participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack had used Parler to organize, both Apple Store (AAPL) and Google Play (GOOGL) removed the Parler app from its platform.
Getting Locked Out Of Twitter And Rushing To Buy Parler
"In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves," West said of the emerging Parler deal in a press statement.
The Parler announcement is a direct reaction to West being locked out of both his Instagram and Twitter. Last week, the former temporarily locked West out of his account after a post in which saying he'd go "death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE."
The comment was a response to Instagram restricting West's account and removing posts in which he tried to claim that Sean "Diddy" Combs was being "controlled" by Jewish people a few days earlier.
The comment plays into a centuries-old conspiracy theory about Jewish people running the world.
The financial details of the deal are not yet made available but Ye is worth over $2 billion while Reuters reported that Parler has raised approximately $56 million in funding so far.
Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer said that the deal would close before the end of the year and include use of private cloud services and technical support from Parlement as part of the agreement.
"Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again," Farmer said in a statement. "[...] Parlement will be honored to help him achieve his goals."
A Page From Elon Musk's Book
While the back-up leading up to it is different, West's knee-jerk response to a social media platform's policies mirror another billionaire's back-and-forth with Twitter.
Back in April, Tesla (TSLA) founder Elon Musk made a $44 billion offer to buy the social media platform. Musk had, at the time, spoken of wanting to decrease the number of fake accounts and push the company toward a more "anything goes" content moderation policy.
In a back-and-forth that lasting more than six months, Musk later reneged on the offer after claiming that Twitter had concealed the number of bots on the platform. Twitter filed a suit over the disruption caused by the withdrawn deal and, at the start of October, Musk recommitted to the purchase.
Many conservatives cheered on what they see as Musk and West's saving free speech but both Musk's and West's signal something much more impulsive — West had not used Twitter since posting "KANYE 2024" in November 2020.
"Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!" Elon Musk tweeted shortly before Kanye was banned over the antisemitic tweets last week.
