By morning, ABC’s subscription base was crumbling faster than a stale cookie. Nearly 1 million subscribers, many of them long-time viewers, had canceled their ABC streaming services. Platforms connected to ABC, like Hulu, also began to feel the pinch as Musk’s followers opted to abandon anything even remotely affiliated with the network. Some claimed they were “purging” their apps to make sure no corporate wokeness survived the Musk-fueled purge.
For those unfamiliar with the debate that kicked off this media firestorm, it all went down during the much-anticipated Trump vs. Harris presidential debate. Moderated by ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis, the event quickly became a battlefield of interruptions, fact-checking, and thinly veiled frustration.
According to Musk and countless others, the moderators spent the bulk of the debate correcting Trump’s claims while letting Harris off the hook. “It felt more like the Harris Fan Club than a debate,” one Musk supporter tweeted in outrage. “They let her do a TED Talk, but Trump couldn’t get a sentence out without a fact-check hammer dropping.”
This sentiment echoed throughout the night, but it wasn’t until Musk—never one to keep his thoughts to himself—publicly declared his displeasure that the floodgates opened.
“We need to fight back against biased media,” Musk tweeted. “ABC has lost it. They don’t care about fairness anymore. Let’s show them that viewers still have power.”
