Photo : Getty In 2018, you go unhinged or you go home. Azealia Banks, the prodigious MC who remains a Twitter villain even after being banned from the service and an underground rapper even after being dropped from multiple record labels, let loose on Instagram after an allegedly disastrous weekend at Elon Musk’s home to see Grimes, Musk’s girlfriend and a fellow musician. Advertisement However, when reached via Twitter direct messages, Musk told Gizmodo that he “has never even met [Banks] or communicated with her in any way.” In other words, he doesn’t know her. A Tesla spokesperson told our sister site, Jalopnik, that the claims were “complete nonsense,” but Banks is a veteran of long and nonsensical beefs. She’s feuded with everyone from Sarah Palin to Nick Cannon. And, like both Musk’s Space X endeavors, wants her future beefs to be interplanetary. Like a dystopian epistolary novel about two feuding houses, Banks told her side of the story via a breathtaking and scattered stream of Instastories. There’s a damsel in distress (Banks, left alone in the mansion), enigmatic villains (Grimes and Musk), and heady oppression metaphors (Banks compares the entire ordeal of having her time wasted to white colonization of Africa.) According to Banks, she spent the past few days at the Musk estate in LA, hoping to finish a song with Grimes for her upcoming sophomore album. The collaboration never came to fruition. Banks alleges Grimes ignored her for days, the first point in a deeply absurd comedy of errors that Banks describes as “a real [life] episode of ‘Get Out.’” “I waited all weekend while grimes coddled her boyfriend for being too stupid to know not to go on twitter while on acid,” Banks posted. “It was probably some weird threesome sex shit to being with.” Advertisement Banks and Grimes, however, have been teasing a collaboration on Twitter for months in advance of Bank’s new album. But rather than cut her losses and simply fly back to New York in silence, Banks went on a separate Insta-rant that began as a delirious critique of colonial wealth and racial privilege, became a vaguely eugenicist denigration of Musk as a caveman, and ended, ultimately, on a few lines that will probably appear on her album in lieu of Grimes. (Gizmodo, it should be noted, could not verify all of these messages were sent by Banks, which were captured by other reporters but have apparently been deleted since.) Advertisement “Elon Musk is really part of the problem...when you talk about white male privilege and colonialism,” it begins. “The last time I try working with a white bitch,” it ends. Advertisement It’s extraordinarily difficult to shock anyone this late in the Internet Beef game, yet Banks has delivered. Additional reporting by Bryan Menegus.<doc-sep>Photo: Azealia Banks via Getty Images Following a wild month of allegations after Azealia Banks claims she was stranded at one of Elon Musk’s California properties, including speculation on his sex life, claims he tweeted while on acid, an accusation that his attorneys took her phone to delete evidence and conflicting statements on whether she actually met Musk in person, it appears Banks’ Instagram and Twitter accounts have either been removed or suspended. Advertisement It is unclear to what degree Bank’s Instagram account was removed by Banks herself or by Instagram itself. But visiting Bank’s former Instagram page only brought up a message saying her account “isn’t available”: Updated 5:00 p.m.: Instagram confirmed to Jalopnik that it did not remove Banks’ account. Updated 11:50 p.m.: Banks’ Instagram account appears to be back, putting up a string of posts within the last hour announcing tour dates and locations on both the main account and the Instagram story. As of right now, her Twitter account seems to still be suspended. The article continues as originally published below. If you head over to Banks’ Twitter, @cheapyxo, which became her main account after a previous suspension in 2016 for racially charged tweets against singer Zayn Malik, you’re redirected to Twitter’s “account suspended” page. Her account had also previously been temporarily suspended again in June of 2018. Advertisement Jalopnik reached out to Banks’ agent, who declined to comment on the possible suspension of her social media accounts. Jalopnik also reached out to Twitter and Tesla for comment, and we’ll update if we get one. Elon Musk has had a hell of a time on Twitter himself. Just yesterday he was logged back on to dispute the New York Times reporting he choked up in an interview with the publication, followed by a series of tweets doubling down on his claim that one of the Thai cave rescuers who criticized Musk’s child cave submarine was a pedophile. Musk claimed the rescuer failed to file a lawsuit of his pedophile accusation, but CNBC reports today that he is in fact preparing legal action. Advertisement On August 7, Musk controversially tweeted that he had funding secured to take Tesla private at a valuation of $420 per share, but it took him a week to reveal possible investors to back such a move. The tweet has reportedly led to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the legitimacy and truthfulness of Musk’s announcement. Advertisement Controversy over Tesla’s privatization was exacerbated by a series of posts Azealia Banks shared to her Instagram story, where she claimed Musk was “tweeting on acid fucking up his own stocks.” Banks also dove into wild speculation about Musk’s relationship with artist Grimes, who Banks’ claims she was meant to collaborate with on new music. In later Instagram stories, Banks claimed Elon Musk’s attorneys paid off her attorneys to take her phone to delete evidence, later telling Business Insider that Musk and his people were lying about not having her phone. She also posted screenshots of an alleged conversation with Grimes about how Musk determined the $420 valuation that he announced as well as the SEC investigation. Advertisement Musk’s team has maintained that the two never met, but Banks claims they did bump into each other in Musk’s kitchen one night, presumably at the same time she claims he was “scrounging for investors to cover his ass.” On Monday, Banks posted a screenshot of an alleged apology letter she sent to Musk back on August 19. In the same Instagram story, she prompted her followers to submit Tesla fan fiction by Oct. 31 to win a $1,000 cash prize. Advertisement It’s not clear if it was Banks’ exhaustive coverage of Musk’s life that drove her offline, as she’s been silenced multiple times before for beefs she’s maintained with plenty of other people. Regardless, she always comes back, and I personally can’t wait for that.<doc-sep>LOS ANGELES — At least no one can ever accuse Elon Musk of leading a dull life. The ex-PayPal billionaire is busy engineering an electric car revolution (Tesla), leading a rocket company (SpaceX) and tunneling toward a high-speed mobility future (The Boring Company). But now he's in a soap opera that could have consequences for a reported Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into Musk's recent tweets about taking Tesla private. It goes like this: Musk had been on the town of late with Grimes, the Canadian singer whose real name is Claire Boucher. The pair appeared together earlier this year at the fancy Met Gala ball in New York, and she allegedly was at his Los Angeles home when her friend, rapper Azealia Banks, visited to work on a planned music collaboration during the weekend starting Friday, August 10. But there had been a mix-up: Grimes and Musk were leaving for part of the weekend (Musk spoke at the DefCon cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas Friday night) while Banks was invited to stay on at the house. That's when things got, well, strange. In a series of posts on Instagram a few days later, Banks described waiting around for Grimes to emerge at the Musk compound, likening it to being in the movie Get Out, which is about an African-American man who is attacked by whites. The rapper then wrapped a new accusation into her gripes about being stood up: that Musk had been dropping acid, or the psychedelic drug LSD. “I waited around all weekend while grimes coddled her boyfriend for being too stupid to know not to go on Twitter while on acid,” Banks was quoted by The New York Times as having written in a post that appears to have since been deleted. That's of interest largely because only days earlier, on Aug. 7, Musk shocked the markets and Tesla's stock price with a tweet that suggested he was considering taking his public car company private, and that he had the funding to do so. That unorthodox public trial balloon is what caught the attention of the SEC, which doesn't take lightly even the slightest hint of stock price manipulation. Tesla stock initially jumped on the tweet, but then dropped 9 percent Friday in its tumultuous wake. It has since regained some of those losses. On August 13, Banks told Business Insider that she saw Musk "in the kitchen tucking his tail in between his legs scrounging for investors” after his tweet about taking Tesla private, adding, “He was stressed and red in the face.” Musk told tech website Gizmodo that he had never met Banks or “communicated with her in any way.” In a separate interview with the Times, he denied that the $420 target price to take Tesla private was chosen because of its link to the marijuana world — a nod to April 20 being Weed Day. Instead, he said a 20 percent premium to the price of Tesla stock at the time was $419, and he simply rounded up. "It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419," he said. He denied drugs were involved when he sent the tweet, but he did admit he had seen Banks -- at a distance. Banks is no stranger to public feuds. She's dueled with everyone from Russell Crowe and Rihanna to Cardi B and Sarah Palin. One casualty of this ongoing feud could be Musk's new relationship. He and Grimes have unfollowed each other on social media and he's deleted his Instagram account. Contributing: Andrea Mandell, Marco della Cava<doc-sep>
Tesla may not be going private after all, but the drama from that ordeal is far from over. Are you excited for more? Strap yourselves in, kids, it’s gonna be a long night. Singer Azealia Banks continues to make Instagram posts about Tesla CEO Elon Musk and artist Grimes, his (maybe now ex?) girlfriend, and Banks claims she did in fact meet Musk in person around the time he sent his now-infamous tweet claiming funding was “secured” to take Tesla private. That tweet has since sparked a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, making Banks a potential witness in the case. But after blasting Musk on various Instagram stories, she has since penned an apology she shared on her own accounts concerning all of the “painful events” caused by her posts, which included allegations that Musk was tweeting while on acid. Then she promised a cash prize for whoever could write the best Tesla fan fiction, suggesting she is not done posting. You’re not on wine or Ambien (unless you are); this is an actual thing that is happening in 2018. According to the Instagram account elon_azealia_drama, which claims to document all of Banks’ posts concerning her Musk beef, she posted to her story about how this whole situation has made her better educated about the stock market, and offered an explanation for where she was when she claims to have witnessed Musk seeking investors in his kitchen. According to screenshots on the account, she also claimed she did in fact meet Musk in person, and most importantly, she shared details of how to enter and win her Tesla fan fiction contest. In the screenshots below of Banks’ Instagram story from Saturday and Sunday, the artist explains her reasoning for sharing what she claims where her experiences while visiting Musk’s estate under the premise of collaborating on new music with Musk’s then-and-possibly-current girlfriend Grimes. “Over the time spent liaising said collaborations, I was welcomed to a lot of personal information about you. The stuff made me feel awkward and uncomfortable about being privy to, yet I never had any intentions of ever using the information against you. What started off as a cat-fight lead [sic] to some seriously unexpected consequences and I sincerely apologize,” Banks wrote in the letter dated August 19. The letter posted to Banks’ story on Saturday. Despite the sentimentality of Banks’ letter, she followed it up on her Instagram story this weekend with a post alleging Musk’s team still has her phone, which has been repeatedly denied by Musk’s spokespeople, along with a screenshot of a tweet casting a hypothetical movie concerning the events between Banks, Grimes and Musk, followed by screenshots of fans discussing how the media coverage of the past few weeks has failed to adequately cover her music career. The Instagram story concerning Tesla ended with the promise of a $1,000 cash prize for the best fan fiction written about Banks and Tesla by October 31st. The rest of Banks’ story concerning Tesla. Jalopnik reached out to Tesla for comment. We’ll update if we get one Over the past couple of weeks, Banks claimed she was left waiting alone at the Musk estate after being invited there to work with Grimes on music. In a rant posted to her Instagram story, she said Musk was a “beta male who took steroids and got hairplugs to convince himself he was alpha,” and alleged that Musk was “tweeting on acid fucking up his own stocks.” In an interview with Business Insider, Banks followed that up by claiming she saw Musk in the kitchen “scrounging for investors to cover his ass after that tweet.” Musk and his spokespeople maintain that Banks and Musk never met. Last week, Banks continued to post about Musk, claiming that his attorneys paid off her attorneys to take her phone and delete evidence. The screenshots she posted also showed Banks claiming she’s “like a very fierce protector of children,” and “can see them in the invisible world,” with Grimes allegedly then asking what the “invisible world” is after suggesting Banks get pregnant at the same time as her. Since the start of Banks rampaging Instagram posts earlier this month, Musk has deleted his Instagram account and decided against taking Tesla private, multiple Tesla shareholders filed lawsuits over Musk’s tweets, and the series of events has reportedly resulted in an SEC investigation into Musk for fraud. Anyway, start getting your fan fiction ready. You have plenty of material at this point.