In 2002, Kanye West had a near-fatal car accident that left him with a fractured jaw that required him to receive an emergency operation and have his jaw wired shut. This famously led to his track ‘Through The Wire’. However, in a text to Elon Musk, West unveiled that he believes the accident caused him to develop autism.
Fashion designer and model Ian Connor publicly released the texts at the request of Kanye himself. Connor has collaborated closely with the Chicago emcee and shared screenshots of the messages on October 18th and his own exchanges with the artist (who is saved in his phone as ‘President YE’).
In his text to Musk, West accused Musk of not publicly supporting him and his divorce from Kim Kardashian. He also asked that the “nature of [their] relationship” change and suggested that he has “signs of autism from [his] car accident.”
The text thread read, “When are we going to speak. You owe me nothing. You never have to speak to me again. But if we do speak. The nature of the relationship has to change. I’m not bi-polar. I have signs of autism from my car accident.”
He continued, “You can’t watch Kim keep my kids from me. And not say anything publicly and then call yourself my friend so I can bring my audience to your struggling platform.” West sent the screenshots to Connor and told him “Get this out to the public.” “Say Less,” Connor replied. “2:22am”
As hip-hop’s chief troublemaker, the College Dropout, attacked Musk on Instagram, calling him a “genetic hybrid” who he speculated could be “half Chinese”, writing, “Am I the only one who thinks Elon could be half Chinese? Have you ever seen his pics as a child?” he wrote. “Take a Chinese genius and mate them with a South African super model, and we have an Elon.”
Elon responded by writing, “I take that as a compliment!” Musk was the figure who reactivated West’s account in July after an eight-month suspension following his anti-semitic tirade last year. You can see the texts below.