“All for one, and one for all” could have new meaning in the world of social media thanks to three unique, well-known personalities.
What Happened: Kanye West, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are all familiar names to millions of people in America and around the world. All three could also have more in common soon than just being famous.
Former President Donald Trump launched his own social media platform Truth Social after being kicked off of platforms such as Twitter Inc TWTR and Meta Platforms Inc META-owned Facebook. Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, is in the process of a SPAC merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp DWAC.
Elon Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla Inc TSLA and SpaceX, offered to acquire Twitter for $44 billion earlier this year. After walking away from the deal, Musk submitted a new proposal to acquire the company for the originally agreed-upon $54.20.
West, who also goes by Ye, announced Monday that he was acquiring the social media platform, Parler. The social media platform has attracted a user base of voices mainly conservative in nature and many supporters of Trump.
West was recently banned on Instagram for posts that were called anti-Semitic in nature.
“We may place restrictions on accounts that repeatedly break our rules, for example, we may temporarily restrict them from posting, commenting or sending DMs,” a Meta Platform spokesperson told The Independent.
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Why It’s Important: There is some overlap between the three personalities. Musk and Trump have battled before over topics such as electric vehicles and Musk publicly criticized Trump’s Truth Social platform.
Despite the potential heated rivalry, Musk has also said if he acquires Twitter he would welcome Trump back on the platform.
“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for … accounts that are bots or spam/scam accounts where there’s just no legitimacy to the account at all,” Musk said.
Musk directly addressed the potential to welcome back Trump.
“I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
West is a fan of Donald Trump, recently calling him the “s***.”
Rapper West also was recently contacted by Musk according to the Twitter CEO. After posting messages on Twitter that were later deleted, Musk said he reached out to West and said that he thinks the rapper took his feedback “to heart.”
Musk originally welcomed West back to Twitter after he posted for the first time in years.
“Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!” Musk tweeted.
West, Trump and Musk could all soon own social media platforms that support or will further support free speech. While the platforms could be in competition with each other, some have questioned if there could be partnerships or synergies.
Musk posted a picture on Twitter of himself, Musk and Trump as the Three Musketeers with the caption “In retrospect, it was inevitable.”
The three personalities have swords that point to Parler, Truth Social and X, the name Musk wants to call his social media venture in the future. The tweet was later deleted by Musk along with another meme Musk shared of him and West together with Parler and Twitter on their shirts respectively with “wait for it…” in the picture.
It could be highly unlikely that the three personalities team up given Musk and Trump’s past comments about each other. The support for free speech platforms gives the three people something in common but might fall short of a reason for collaboration.
Photo: West, Trump via Shutterstock; Musk via Steve Jurvetson, Flickr Creative Commons
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