Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ripped Netflix as having a “woke mind virus” that makes subscription streaming service “unwatchable” Tuesday as shares took a nosedive.
“The woke mind virus is making Netflix unwatchable,” Musk tweeted Tuesday night, responding to Slashdot’s tweet about Netflix’s shares cratering by 20% after the company reported it lost subscribers for the first time in more than 10 years.
By Wednesday morning before market open, Netflix shares were down by 27%. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Netflix shares were on course for their worst day in nearly a decade.
In releasing its first quarter report Tuesday afternoon, Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings said the company would be experimenting with lower-cost, ad-supported packages and acknowledged the effect of growing competition in the streaming market. The company projected an even greater loss of two million subscribers in the second quarter, meaning it would end the first half of the year down 7.8 million subscribers than from what Wall Street was expecting, according to the Journal.
Meanwhile, Musk is working with investment bank Morgan Stanley to secure funding for his $43 billion bid to buy Twitter and take the social media platform private, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The billionaire has been vocal critical of what he sees as Big Tech’s trend of censoring free speech, especially conservative viewpoints.
Musk indicated he is willing to spend up to $15 billion of his own cash to take Twitter private and is expected to make a bid in less than 10 days, according to reports Tuesday.