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Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Parlement Technologies, the company behind Parler, announced Monday that the controversial social media site would be sold to Kanye West -- who was locked out of his Instagram and Twitter accounts for recent anti-Semitic remarks. "In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves," West, who legally changed his name to Ye last year, said in a statement.
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The terms of the proposed deal include Parlement Technologies providing ongoing technical support for Parler and the use of its private cloud services and data center infrastructure.
Further details about the deal that was reached were not immediately known but Parler said a definitive purchase agreement is expected to close by the end of the year.
"This deal will change the world and change the way the world thinks about free speech," Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer said in the statement.
"Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again."
West, 45, is worth around $2 billion for his music and sneaker brand Yeezy as well as his former partnership with Gap, which ended recently.
Last Saturday, West slammed Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg on Twitter after his Instagram account was restricted when he posted a screenshot of text messages with Sean Combs, also known as P. Diddy, stemming from his controversial "White Lives Matter" shirt at Paris Fashion Week.
In the since-deleted messages with Combs, Diddy asked West to "stop playing these internet games" to which West responded that he would use Combs as "an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me."
West, in a now-deleted tweet, also said after the restriction he "can't be anti-Semitic" because "Black people are actually Jew also."
"You guys have toyed with me and tried to blackball anyone whoever opposes your agenda," West said.
West, who seemingly most recently tweeted in November 2020, returned to the platform after he was restricted on Instagram but was locked out of Twitter later that day.
The rapper made controversial statements again over the weekend in an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast in which he said George Floyd, the Black man who was murdered by a group of Minneapolis police officers in 2020, had died from fentanyl.
"They hit him with the fentanyl, if you look the guy's knee wasn't even on his neck like that," West said on the podcast.
Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney, said on Twitter on Saturday that the family of George Floyd is considering a lawsuit against West for his "false statements about the manner of his death."
"Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines & diminishes the Floyd family's fight," Merritt said.
Parler has received its own share of controversy as it was booted from Amazon's cloud hosting service after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It was also removed from the major mobile app platforms and suffered a leadership shakeup and a failed legal challenge seeking to force Amazon to continue to host it.
However, the platform returned a month later with a redesigned homepage and clearer community guidelines.
