Elon Musk Says Cancel Netflix Now—Here’s Why

Elon Musk has a fresh target this week: Netflix. He spent the past few days boosting posts that urge people to cancel their subscriptions, tying it to a flare-up around Hamish Steele (the creator of the already-canceled animated series Dead End: Paranormal Park) and what critics in his replies call pro-trans propaganda. It is, to put it lightly, a very online pile-on.

How this started

The spark was a set of screenshots doing the rounds that claim to show Steele reacting to posts about conservative activist Charlie Kirk. In those grabs, Steele allegedly wrote something along the lines of: why are you even commenting on this, and referred to a random nazi getting shot with a public statement. That allegation, true or not, is what lit the fuse in Musk-land and kicked off the cancel-Netflix push.

"Just cancelled my Netflix subscription. If you employ someone who celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk and makes content that pushes pro-trans content on my kid... you will NEVER get a dime of my money. It's as simple as that."

Musk reshared that post and replied with a simple "Same." From there, he kept amplifying similar messages.

What Musk boosted

• He echoed a user who said they canceled their Netflix sub over Steele and kids content, replying "Same" and then reposting more calls to cancel.
• He also resurfaced a claim that Netflix discriminates against white people, pointing to the company's own inclusion and diversity materials. The post he amplified read: "Holy shlit @netflix appears to openly boast about discriminating against White people. In their inclusion & diversity report, they celebrate that the percentage of racially underrepresented directors and lead characters has been growing significantly over the past few years. Why doesn't Netflix hire based on qualifications instead of skin color??" Musk added "Cancel Netflix" to that one.
• The thrust of the campaign is that shows like Dead End: Paranormal Park are part of an alleged pro-trans agenda at Netflix. Yes, Dead End has already been canceled, but it's still the example being thrown around.

The Netflix angle

This isn't the first time Netflix has caught heat over diversity-focused hiring and programming. The company has been hammered from both sides of the culture war for years, so none of this is new territory. What is new is Musk putting his thumb on the scale by signal-boosting the posts to his massive audience.

Did it hit the stock?

With that kind of reach, the campaign got a market footnote: according to Forbes, Netflix shares were down 2.2% to $1,173.12 as of Wednesday. Correlation isn't causation, but the timing is what got noticed in the posts Musk shared.

Bottom line: Musk vs. Netflix is back in the discourse, triggered by messy screenshot drama and kept alive by culture-war posts. We'll see if this is a weekend flare-up or something that actually dents subscriptions.