Elon Musk, the world's richest man and owner of the social network X, sparked a global storm after urging his 226 million followers to cancel their subscriptions to the Netflix.
Elon's criticism came after posts by Hamish Steele, creator of the Netflix series Dead End: Paranormal Park, which features a transgender teenager, resurfaced.
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He also condemned Netflix for hiring Steele, who made offensive comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and accuses the platform of employing someone who celebrated Kirk's death.
The founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX, the company that owns and operates Starlink in at least 22 African countries, also shared user complaints that Netflix was promoting what he called a "woke agenda," which intensified calls for a boycott.
Netflix, the popular subscription streaming service, has not issued an official response, even as the controversy has sparked a heated debate on X about children's content and representation in media.
The storm comes at a crucial time for Netflix, when the streaming giant has around 4,5 million subscribers across sub-Saharan Africa, with South Africa and Nigeria as its leading markets.
Since July 2025, Canal+ subscribers can access Netflix directly through their pay-TV platform in 24 French-speaking markets, including Ivory Coast, Senegal and Cameroon.
As the boycott storm rages, it's still unclear whether Musk's calls have impacted Netflix's subscriber base, though some Netflix users have claimed to have canceled and even shared screenshots of their cancellation pages.
