An explosive new investigation by the New York Times details how Adidas employees experienced frequent anti-Semitism from Grammy Award-winning rapper and Yeezy designer Kanye West for nearly a decade.
Adidas officially ended its partnership with the rapper and producer, who now goes by Ye, in October of 2022, after multiple virulently anti-Semitic remarks, including a tweet in which the rapper threatened to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”
However, West’s pattern of anti-Semitism dates back to at least 2013, according to the Times’ reporting.
At the start of her report, Megan Twohey detailed how, in his initial meeting with Adidas executives at their German headquarters in 2013, West expressed his dissatisfaction with a proposed shoe design by taking a marker and drawing a swastika — the display of which is banned in Germany — on the design. He also reportedly told Jewish Adidas executive Jon Wexler, who at the time was Adidas’ global director of entertainment and influencer marketing, to “kiss a picture of Hitler every day.”
And it can be moreso for wealthy people. It can be easy to fire people who say "maybe you should tone down the ‘Hitler loving’ stuff’ and only keep yes men around who will tell you that you’re doing great no matter what you do.
Obviously, the wealthy people who fall into this trap are still responsible for what they do. This isn’t an excuse. However, it can help explain why some wealthy people say idiotic things that their staff should have stopped.