Ye is no longer buying right-leaning social media site Parler, the company said Thursday after the controversial rapper praised Adolf Hitler in an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, had offered to buy Parler in October. At the time, Ye and Parlement Technologies, which owns Parler, said the acquisition would be completed in the last three months of the year. The sale price and other details were not disclosed.
“This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November,” Parlement Technologies said in a statement Thursday. “Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.”
Parler is a small platform in the emerging space of right-leaning, far-right and libertarian social apps that promise little to no content moderation that would weed out hate speech, racism and misinformation, among other objectionable content. None of the sites have come close to reaching mainstream status.
Parler launched in August 2018 but didn’t start picking up steam until 2020. It was kicked offline in January 2021 over its ties to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol earlier that month. A month after the attack, Parler announced a relaunch but didn’t return to the Google Play Store until September of this year.
Ye has made a series of antisemitic comments in recent weeks, which have led to his suspension from social media platforms, his talent agency dropping him and companies like Adidas cutting ties with him. The sportswear manufacturer has also launched an investigation into his conduct.
His latest antisemitic tirade included praising Nazi Germany in an interview with Jones on Thursday. “I see good things about Hitler,” Ye said during the live-streamed conversation. He also went on to say that Hitler “didn’t kill 6 million Jews.”
White nationalist Nick Fuentes and Ali Alexander, who helped organize the Stop the Steal rallies ahead of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, appeared alongside Ye in the Jones interview.
In a statement, the Republican Jewish Coalition condemned Ye’s comments and called Jones, Fuentes and Ye “a disgusting triumvirate of conspiracy theorists, Holocaust deniers, and antisemites.
“Given his praise of Hitler, it can’t be overstated that Kanye West is a vile, repellent bigot who has targeted the Jewish community with threats and Nazi-style defamation,” the coalition said. “Conservatives who have mistakenly indulged Kanye West must make it clear that he is a pariah. Enough is enough.”
During the interview, Ye handed his phone to Fuentes, Jones and Alexander, who all took turns sending out tweets from Ye’s account. Alexander’s tweet demanded a civil rights investigation into “violations of the J6 political prisoners” and asked “why were the only people killed unarmed protestors that day?”
Last week, Ye had dinner with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate and brought along Fuentes. West and Fuentes are from the Chicago area, with West living in South Shore and the southern suburbs as a youth.
Fuentes, 24, has become a far-right extremist leader. In 2017, he attended the white nationalist alt-right Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, with marchers chanting antisemitic slogans. In 2020, he founded the America First Political Action Conference, which sits politically to the right of the conservative right.
The Anti-Defemation League said in an analysis of Fuentes that he “seeks to carve out a space that deliberately and publicly challenges the mainstream conservative movement while doubling down on themes central to the white supremacist movement. Fuentes and his America First adherents vocally support the closure of the U.S. borders to immigrants, while opposing ‘liberal’ values such as feminism and LGBTQ+ rights. Fuentes views these societal changes as the ‘bastardized Jewish subversion of the American creed.’”
Ye said last week that he was planning a presidential run in 2024 and tapped far-right political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos as his campaign manager.
West on Thursday posted a video on Twitter, which has since been deleted, where he talks about the meeting with Trump and how Trump was “really impressed” with Fuentes. West said he asked Trump to be his vice president.
Contributing: Associated Press and Lynn Sweet
