Elon Musk Praises Netflix For Telling 'Woke' Workers To Quit In New Memo
By Kristin Myers on May 18, 2022 at 8:30 AM EDT
Billionaire Elon Musk is now praising Netflix for their new memo encouraging workers to quit if they can't work on controversial content that they might disagree with.
Author Tom Fitton retweeted an article from the Wall Street Journal, adding, "@Netflix Inc. has a new message for its employees: Be prepared to work on content you may not agree with. And if you don’t like that, you can quit. -- @ElonMusk seems to be having an impact beyond @Twitter."
.@Netflix Inc. has a new message for its employees: Be prepared to work on content you may not agree with. And if you don’t like that, you can quit. -- @ElonMusk seems to be having an impact beyond @Twitter...https://t.co/dhDJ7Hnz4u via @WSJ
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) May 14, 2022
Musk then took the opportunity to praise Netflix for its new memo and polarizing stance.
Elon Musk Praises Netflix's New Memo
Good move by @netflix
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2022
In a short tweet, Musk responded to the mention by commenting, "Good move by @netflix."
The woke mind virus is making Netflix unwatchable
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2022
Late last month, Musk had criticized Netflix and blamed its loss of subscribers on its "woke" culture, alleging, "The woke mind virus is making Netflix unwatchable."
Netflix Adds New Guidelines On Artistic Expression
The memo, titled, “Netflix Culture – Seeking Excellence,” may be in response to the employee protests over Dave Chappelle’s Netflix stand-up special, “The Closer,” which put him – and Netflix – at odds with the transgender community. Although employees staged a workout, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos stood behind Chappelle, who was recently attacked while performing at the Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival.
One part of the memo reads, “As employees, we support the principle that Netflix offers a diversity of stories, even if we find some titles counter to our own personal values.”
“Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful,” the message continued. “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”
“Entertaining the world is an amazing opportunity and also a challenge because viewers have very different tastes and points of view,” said the Netflix memo. “So we offer a wide variety of TV shows and movies, some of which can be provocative.”
“To help members make informed choices about what to watch, we offer ratings, content warnings, and easy-to-use parental controls,” they added, recognizing that “Not everyone will like — or agree with — everything on our service,” said the broadcaster.
It continued: “While every title is different, we approach them based on the same set of principles: we support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with; we program for a diversity of audiences and tastes; and we let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.”
“We model ourselves on being a professional sports team, not a family,” Netflix continued. “A family is about unconditional love. A dream team is about pushing yourself to be the best possible teammate, caring intensely about your team, and knowing that you may not be on the team forever.”
They were quick to add, “Dream teams are not right for everyone.”