Elon Musk has called on his X followers to cancel their Netflix subscription over a character in a new Transformers cartoon.
The debate began when the ‘Libs of TikTok’ account claimed that the cartoon, Transformers Earthspeak, was “pushing a woke gender identity propaganda”.
It shared a clip from the show of a young non-binary child telling a robot about people who “aren’t female or male”. The robot replies to the child, “what a wonderful word for a wonderful experience.”
A second clip shows the robot being referred to as “they/them” by the chid, with the robot, named Nightshade, saying, “he or she just doesn’t fit who I am,” in reply. Optimus Prime – the leader of the Autobots – also apologises for referring to another character with the wrong pronouns.
The account ‘Libs of TikTok’ called on people to ‘Cancel Netflix’ and now Elon Musk has called on his X followers to do the same.
He shared a post writing ‘Cancel Netflix’ and re shared a post by Father Ted creator Graham Linehan which confirmed that he had cancelled his Netflix account.
Cancel Netflix https://t.co/C0cPhbnaB4
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 2, 2025
In recent years, Linehan has made headlines with his anti-transgender views, being a vocal opponent of concepts including gender self-identification and what he has described as “trans ideology,” leading to a Father Ted musical being axed in 2022.
Prior to that, in 2018, Linehan was issued a verbal harassment warning by police after he was involved in an online row with a transgender activist.
He was also arrested last month at Heathrow airport “on suspicion of inciting violence.”
On his Substack page, Linehan shared details of the arrest, which he said took place as he was returning from Arizona on an inbound American Airlines flight to Heathrow. He claimed to have “been flagged” and “arrested at an airport like a terrorist” (via The Independent).
Writing on Substack, the 57-year-old Irishman said he was taken to a cell and then questioned over the posts, published on X in April, relating to him challenging a “trans-identified male” in a “female-only space”.
“The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two—five,” he wrote on his blog. “They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets.”
In response to Linehan’s claim that he was arrested by armed officers, the Met said: “The arrest was made by officers from the MPS Aviation Unit. It is routine for officers policing airports to carry firearms. These were not drawn or used at any point during the arrest.”
He added that his sole bail condition is that he is not to go on the X/Twitter platform, and he faced a further interview.
Linehan is already facing trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday (September 4) over two separate charges. One is in relation to allegedly harassing transgender activist Sophia Brooks on social media, and the other is for damaging Brooks’ mobile phone last year. He denied the charges at a hearing held in May this year.