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- Elon Musk urged his followers to cancel Netflix for the "health of your kids" on Wednesday.Musk's posts come amid criticism by some online of a Netflix animated show featuring a teenage protagonist who is trans.It's unclear whether a significant number of Netflix users have canceled.
Elon Musk had a message for his social-media followers on Wednesday morning: "Cancel Netflix for the health of your kids."
The Tesla CEO, who made the remarks in response to criticism of an animated Netflix show featuring a teenage protagonist who is trans, indicated earlier on Tuesday that he had canceled his subscription to the streaming service.
It's the latest example of Musk wading into the culture wars and urging his 226 million followers to take action against a company with which he disagrees.
Netflix's stock was down around 2% on Wednesday amid a volatile market.
Musk's denouncement of Netflix comes as some accounts on X, including the popular @LibsofTikTok, have recently called for a boycott of the streaming platform while criticizing Netflix's "Dead End: Paranormal Park" and its creator, Hamish Steele.
Musk has been reposting and supporting accounts that have accused Netflix of promoting trans ideology to children on the streaming platform. Some of the accounts shared screenshots that appear to show Steele criticizing Charlie Kirk after his death. (Business Insider was unable to verify if Steele made the remarks, as his X profile has been set to private.)
Steele did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
The animated fantasy horror series first premiered on Netflix in 2022 and ran for two seasons before Steele announced in 2023 that it had been canceled.
"It's probably going to be a very odd day," Steele said Tuesday on his BlueSky account, sharing a screenshot of Musk's reshare of the @LibsofTikTok post.
While it's not clear what, if any, Musk's posts have had on Netflix's subscriber numbers, some X users have said they canceled or were planning to cancel their subscriptions to the streamer. Some posted screenshots of a Netflix cancellation page.
On Google Trends, searches for "cancel Netflix" increased on Wednesday.
Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Musk, who has a trans 21-year-old daughter, the model Vivian Jenna Wilson, has been vocally critical of trans people online and in interviews in recent years.
Musk criticized Vivian's transition in an interview with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson in 2024, saying the "woke mind virus" had "killed" his estranged child. Vivian has spoken out against her father's views in interviews.
Netflix, the latest streaming platform to face boycott calls, previously faced criticism in 2021 over comedian Dave Chappelle's comedy specials, which included jokes about trans people that many people viewed as transphobic.
"It's impossible to please everybody, but we are trying to please a world that is made of people of different tastes, sensibilities, and beliefs, and it becomes very difficult to do that for everybody," Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in response to the criticism in 2021.
Sarandos also said at the time that he wanted to make it "really clear" that he supports "artistic freedom and the creators that work at Netflix."
Musk has previously urged his followers to delete Facebook after saying he found it unsettling, threatened to ban iPhones at Tesla over OpenAI's deal with Apple, and posted "defund NPR" after the organization stopped posting to X.
