Maybe Kanye West isn’t the ideal person to do a classroom visit.
Showing once again his unusual talent for picking the most unlikely people to defend and support, Kanye West—sorry, Ye—took an opportunity during a visit to an art school to launch a stirring defense of embattled Tesla founder Elon Musk, who has just prompted a $20m settlement with the SEC for making misleading stock statements on Twitter.
In the offending tweet, he had said he was ready to take Tesla private and had funding secured to do so.
ADVERTISEMENT
Musk also courted controversy over the summer by attacking a British diver who helped rescue a Thai teen soccer team that was trapped in a cave. Seemingly offended by the rescue operation’s refusal to use a submarine Musk had created, the entrepreneur repeatedly claimed the diver was a pedophile.
Undeterred, West went into bat for Musk.
“Elon Musk, I don’t give a fuck who’s over at his house, leave that man the fuck alone,” the 41-year-old rapper ranted during his visit to Detroit’s College of Creative Studies, while standing on a table, as you do, according to a clip posted to Twitter by one bemused student.
After a dramatic pause, West reiterates his point, saying again, “Leave that man the fuck alone.”
It’s not entirely clear in what, if any, context West might have found his thoughts veering to the plight of Musk and the challenges of innovation while standing on a table.
Page Six offers speculation that West was referencing comments Azealia Banks made in August about the Tesla CEO.
Banks has claimed she was at Musk’s home to work on music with his former girlfriend, the singer Grimes, and had to wait around “while Grimes coddled her boyfriend for being too stupid to know not to go on Twitter while on acid.”
During his visit to Detroit, West also hung out with Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert and StockX CEO Josh Luber, according to a Detroit Free Press report.
West has had a tumult-filled week in which he has been repeatedly slammed for voicing his support for Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live and has launched a bizarre campaign against the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.
