X Marks
A journalist has won the fight to force Elon Musk to reveal the list of people who funded his Twitter purchase — and one name on the list sticks out the worst way.
As the court filings stemming from reporter and author Jacob Silverman's unmasking request reveal, Musk's Twitter takeover was funded by everyone from Saudi prince and Harvard investor Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud to Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey to — perhaps most bizarrely — rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs, whose involvement in the deal had been rumored by TMZ but never confirmed until now.
In recent months, Combs has been in the news for being accused of a slew of serious crimes ranging from sex trafficking and domestic abuse to being involved in the conspiracy to murder Tupac Shakur.
Though he'd been the subject of whisper network accusations and headline-grabbing violent altercations for years prior, the world was first made aware in stunning detail of the rapper's alleged abusive proclivities last fall, when his ex-girlfriend and fellow musician Cassie Ventura filed a lawsuit against him claiming he'd physically and sexually assaulted her.
Despite the seriousness of the allegations in that quickly-settled lawsuit and the many others that have followed, Musk hasn't yet made any public statement or acknowledgment about Combs' investment — even though he used to, per a forthcoming book from a pair of New York Times reporters, count the rapper as a "good friend."
Puff Puff Pass
In an X post excerpting his soon-to-be-released book "Character Limit," which was co-written with his fellow NYT technology reporter Kate Conger, journalist Ryan Mac notes that Combs' inclusion in the sale came with no small degree of drama.
In conversation with the CEO of Diddy's would-be media empire Revolt TV Detavio Samuels, during his first week as owner of the social network, Musk tried to quell advertisers' fears about the platform's racist cadres that seemed emboldened by his purchase.
During that call, Samuels said that Musk's "approach to content moderation concerned him," and made a point to spell out to the brash billionaire that he had issues with the way he ran the place by likening it to people whispering racial slurs at or around him on a street.
Though Musk ultimately agreed with the Revolt CEO, he also chose that point in the conversation to reveal Combs' investment.
"I don't know if you know this, but Puff is an investor in Twitter," the white South African said, referencing one of Diddy's former stage names. "You know, he's a good friend of mine. We text a lot."
The enjoinder was so cringe, Mac wrote, that "some of the Twitter executives had to resist the urge to bury their heads in their hands" — and it's likely that with this revelation now coming to light, they're continuing to do so.
More on Twitter: The Banks That Financed Elon Musk's Acquisition of Twitter Are Now Absolutely Screwed
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