Y Combinator president Garry Tan’s tweet may have been deleted online from
Aaron Peskin, Myrna Melgar and Dean Preston received threatening letters to their home this week, as well It was first reported by outlet Mission Local. They, and now two other supervisors, have filed police reports.
Peskin spoke to TechCrunch about the letter, which quoted him saying: “I wish you and your loved ones a slow and painful death.” The front of the message contained a photo of Tan, who last weekend posted a tweet addressing seven San Francisco supervisors who oversee local government service delivery.
It read: “Fuck Biskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronin Savai Chan as a brand and fucking crew… And if you’re with Biskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronin Savai Chan as a crew, fuck you too… Die slowly you bastards.”
Following the post and some other comments, Tan apologised, writing that he “thought everyone was going to get the rap reference but that wasn’t a good decision, reference or not – sorry!” The reference in question was Tupac Shakur’s 1996 song “Hit ’em up“.
To be clear, Peskin does not believe the threatening letter he received came from Tan. It is believed to be actually from someone who had sent similar threatening messages to moderators previously.
Peskin, along with four other Jewish board members, received anti-Semitic postcards in the mail in October, Peskin said. We shared some of the language contained in that correspondence, which stated: “This letter was sent to educate public officials. “It was without malicious intent.”
The bottom of the last message read: “This email was sent to communicate a political opinion. “There were no intended threats.”
Peskin has never met Tan in person. However, he said he was one of the politicians summoned by Tan in San Francisco This YouTube video Because of his criticism of Cruise bringing her self-driving car to the city. Ultimately, Cruz lost her permit to work in California after the October accident involving a pedestrian.
Meanwhile, Peskin said Tan’s now-deleted X post had “damaged Democratic discourse.”
“I’m trying to draw a very clear line and say this is unacceptable and harmful to democracy,” Peskin said. “Deleting the tweet and apologizing on Twitter doesn’t leave me, or more importantly, the people of San Franciscans feeling like this man has learned something, or that he truly understands the gravity of what he did in the moment we’re in.”
Attempts to reach Tan via Y Combinator were not answered at press time.