Y Combinator President Garry Tan’s online rant tweet may be deleted from X, however, the effects are lingering, especially for three San Francisco supervisors who have now received threats.
Aaron Peskin, Myrna Melgar and Dean Preston received threatening letters to their homes this week, as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. They, and now two other supervisors, have made police reports.
Peskin spoke to TechCrunch about the letter, which he quoted from: “I wish a slow, painful death for you and your loved ones.” The front of the letter had a photo of Tan, who last weekend posted a tweet addressing 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 label and motherfucking crew … And if you are down with Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan as a crew fuck you too … Die slow motherfuckers.”
Following the post and a few other comments, Tan apologized, writing that he “thought everyone would get the rap reference but that wasn’t a good call, reference or not – sorry!” The reference in question was the 1996 Tupac Shakur song “Hit ‘Em Up.”
To be clear, Peskin does not think the threatening letter he received came from Tan. He believes it was actually from someone who has sent similar threatening letters to the supervisors previously.
Peskin, along with four other of the board’s Jewish members, received antisemitic postcards in the mail in October, Peskin said. He shared some of the verbiage from that correspondence, which reads, “This letter was sent to educate public servants. It was without malicious intent.”
The bottom of the recent letter said, “This mail was sent to communicate a political opinion. No threats were intended.”
Peskin has not met Tan personally. However, he said he was one of the San Francisco politicians Tan called out in this YouTube video over his criticism of Cruise bringing its autonomous car to the city. Ultimately, Cruise lost its permit to operate in California following an October accident involving a pedestrian.
Meanwhile, Tan’s now-deleted X post did “harm to democratic discourse,” Peskin said.
“I’m attempting to draw a very bright line and say that it is unacceptable and that it is damaging to democracy,” Peskin said. “Him taking the tweet down and apologizing on Twitter doesn’t leave me, or more importantly, San Franciscans with the feeling that this guy has learned something, or that he truly understands the gravity of what he’s done in the moment that we are living in.”
Attempts to reach Tan via Y Combinator were not answered at the time of publication.
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