Gene Simmons and Neil Young are leaving Twitter
Kiss bassist Gene Simmons and legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young have separately announced their departure from Twitter, the social media platform now officially known as X under Elon Musk’s leadership.
The announcements arrive following several similar high-profile exits from the platform. Many of the account holders have cited Musk’s reported backing of an antisemitic conspiracy as their reason.
Young, the Canadian musician who made headlines last year while turning his back on Spotify, shared a statement on his website, Neil Young Archives. “We are stopping all use of X we can control,” he wrote. “For reasons that should be obvious to the richest man on Earth, we are taking this action against his company.”
The post featured a photo of Musk’s face with a caption pertaining to the magnate’s electric vehicle company: “Teslas should fly flags of love — not hate.”
He added: “For our many Palestinian friends and our many Jewish friends, we do need to start over in the present and release our terrible connections to the past.
“As bad as they are, they need to be forgotten so we can be free to move on in life together, all humanity focused on saving our planet for future generations of all people.”
Meanwhile, Simmons’ announcement arrived on the platform as his final tweet: “Friends, I’ve decided to end my X/Twitter posting.” he added links to his alternative social media accounts.
It is understood that both musicians are leaving due to a tweet response posted by Musk on November 15th. The original tweet claimed that Jewish communities are “pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
Musk responded in his tweet, “You have said the actual truth.”
The controversy has also led to several large businesses, including Disney, Apple, Lionsgate, Comcast/NBCUniversal, and IBM, removing their adverts from the platform.
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