Y Combinator president Garry Tan’s online tweet may be deleted from X, however, the results remain, especially for three San Francisco supervisors who have now he received threats.
Aaron Peskin, Myrna Melgar and Dean Preston received threatening letters at their homes this week. as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. They, and now two other supervisors, have made reports to the police.
Peskin spoke to TechCrunch about the letter, which he quoted: “I wish a slow, painful death for you and your loved ones.” The front of the letter featured a photo of Tan, who last weekend posted a tweet directed at seven San Francisco supervisors who oversee the delivery of local government services.
It read, “Fuck Chan Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan as a record label and fucking crew… And if you don’t have Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan as a crew, fuck you too… Die slow baby.”
After the post and a few other comments, Tan apologized, writing that he “thought everyone would get the rap reference, but that was not a good call, reference or not – sorry!” The reference in question was Tupac Shakur’s 1996 song “Beat ‘Em Up.”
To be clear, Peskin does not believe the threatening letter he received came from Tan. He believes it was actually from someone who had sent similar threatening letters to supervisors in the past.
Peskin, along with four other Jewish board members, received anti-Semitic cards in the mail in October, Peskin said. He shared some of the words from that correspondence, which reads: “This letter was sent to educate public servants. It was without malicious intent.”
The bottom of the recent letter read: “This message was sent to communicate a political view. No threats were intended.”
Peskin has not met Tan personally. However, he said he was one of the San Francisco politicians Tan called this YouTube video for his criticism of Cruise bringing her self-driving car to town. Ultimately, Cruise lost its license to operate in California after an October accident involving a pedestrian.
Meanwhile, Tan’s now-deleted X post did “damage to democratic discourse,” Peskin said.
“I’m trying to draw a very bright line and say it’s unacceptable and it’s damaging to democracy,” Peskin said. “Whoever took down the tweet and apologized on Twitter does not leave me, or more importantly, San Franciscans with the feeling that this guy has learned anything or that he truly understands the gravity of what he did in the moment we live in. in.”
Attempts to reach Tan through Y Combinator were not returned at the time of publication.
