Netflix Stock Up As Elon Musk's Anti-Trans Boycott Fails To Materialize

Last week, conservatives tried to cancel Netflix to force the carrier to remove transgender characters.

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Last week, conservatives—led by Elon Musk and Libs of TikTok—launched an outrage campaign to cancel Netflix en masse. The uproar began over a years-old kids’ show featuring a transgender boy coming out to the protagonist—a scene that reflects the reality many children already live in, surrounded by queer and trans people in their communities. But what started as fury over one show quickly metastasized into a call to purge all transgender representation from the platform. Right-wing influencers flooded social media with videos of themselves cancelling their Netflix accounts, urging others to follow suit. Netflix, however, didn’t flinch—and a week later, its stock is up, the boycott a fizzle rather than a firestorm, a hollow echo of the successful Disney backlash led by liberals around the same time that followed Jimmy Kimmel’s firing.

On September 29th, far-right influencer who has been accused of fomenting violence towards LGBTQ+ people and supportive teachers, Libs of TikTok, posted a video clip of Dead End: Paranormal Park in which the character Barney Guttman comes out as transgender. “I’m trans, Norma, and everyone at school knows, and everyone at home knows… and being here, it’s like a whole new place. I can just be Barney, and I can choose if and when I tell people,” he says in the episode, describing the relief of finally living without everyone knowing his transgender identity and judging him for it.”

Almost immediately, Elon Musk—who has an estranged transgender daughter—joined the fray, unleashing a flurry of posts targeting the streaming platform and urging his followers to “cancel Netflix for the health of your kids.” The boycott quickly spread, with other conservative influencers echoing his call and attacking Netflix simply for featuring transgender characters at all. What began as outrage over one children’s show escalated into a campaign to erase all trans representation on the platform, targeting titles like Sense8, Tales of the City, The Umbrella Academy, Disclosure, and Will & Harper. Musk, Libs of TikTok, and other right-wing figures amplified the posts to their massive audiences, racking up tens of millions of views in a matter of days.

As of Thursday morning, a week after the uproar began, there’s little sign the boycott made a dent. Netflix stock is up 2.19% from when the first calls to cancel began, and no outlet has reported any significant subscriber losses or dip in viewership. In an article published this morning, The Motley Fool dismissed the effort as noise, writing that the campaign was “a minor setback that has little impact on the company’s long-term prospects” and that “Netflix’s exceptional business and strong outlook still make it a buy.”

Netflix Stock Data, Brian Krassenstein

The failed conservative boycott follows close on the heels of a very different kind of revolt—one led by liberals, not the right. When Disney abruptly dropped Jimmy Kimmel after his comments about Charlie Kirk, liberal viewers responded with their own boycott, cancelling subscriptions to Disney’s streaming service in droves. It worked: Disney lost 1.7 million subscribers, forcing the company to reinstate Kimmel—a move that enraged conservatives. Now, it seems the right is trying to prove it can wield the same cultural muscle, only by aiming at a what they view as a softer target: transgender people. But where the Disney boycott hit hard, the Netflix campaign has landed with a thud—all bark, no bite, and a stock price climbing.

Even so, all eyes are now on Netflix—and every other streaming platform—to see how they handle trans and queer representation moving forward. LGBTQ+ animators have already been squeezed by a shrinking industry and a growing chill around inclusive storytelling, with many quietly warning that the political climate has turned openly hostile. What’s new is the scope: the right is no longer content policing classrooms or libraries—it’s coming for culture itself, demanding the erasure of queer people from mass media. But this time, the backlash seems to be losing steam. If the far right can’t even muster a meaningful dent in Netflix’s bottom line, the balance of power may be shifting.