“You know, he’s a good friend of mine. We text a lot.”
Missing You
In a new book about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, it’s abundantly clear that among countless other character flaws, the billionaire seemed strikingly proud to call accused rapist Sean “Diddy” Combs his friend.
The rapper, who has for the last year been in the news amid repeated credible accusations of sexual and domestic battery and abuse, is even featured in New York Times reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac’s new book “Character Limit.”
Discussing the “star-studded” wedding of Musk’s friend Ari Emanuel, who among other things is the CEO of the company that owns both World Wrestling Entertainment and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Combs’ name comes up in passing between Larry David and Mark Wahlberg as its famous attendees are listed off.
Though it’s unclear exactly when they met, it becomes clear later in the book, published earlier this month by Penguin Random House, that the multi-hyphenate business owner used his friendship with the 54-year-old Bad Boy Records owner to his advantage.
Need a Girl
Set during the earliest days of his Twitter takeover, a tense scene from November 2022 involved a man named Detavio Samuels, the CEO of a media company Combs had founded called Revolt TV.
As the head of a company that advertised on the site, Samuels was understandably concerned about racism on the social network getting worse under Musk’s ownership — and to quell the Revolt CEO’s fears, the South African-born billionaire decided to name-drop his famous Black friend.
“‘I don’t know if you know this, but Puff is an investor in Twitter,’ [Musk] said, using a nickname for Combs,” Mac and Conger recount. “‘You know, he’s a good friend of mine. We text a lot.'”
As Futurism noted earlier this year, Diddy’s involvement in Musk’s purchase of Twitter had been rumored by TMZ around the time this anecdote took place, but it wasn’t confirmed until journalist Jacob Silverman successfully unmasked the site’s investors in court last month.
Though “Character Limit” gives no indication that Musk saw anything wrong with what he told Samuels, the people who were there to witness this embarrassing incident of textbook racism dismissal were, as one could imagine, quite embarrassed by the ordeal.
“Some of the Twitter executives had to resist the urge to bury their heads in their hands,” Conger and Mac wrote.
As far as we can tell, Musk doesn’t seem to have responded publicly to revelations of Diddy’s many alleged wrongdoings, which isn’t exactly surprising — but is nevertheless striking, given that the rapper was rumored to have spent $10 million on helping the billionaire buy Twitter.
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