CLEVELAND — With high profile support, comes a lot of conversation.
THE CLAIM
Posts have been floating around on social media claiming that Netflix made a big donation to Vice President Kamala Harris in support of her presidential race, causing the company’s stock price to drop by 40 percent and its subscriber numbers to plummet.
So let’s VERIFY.
SOURCES
- Tech news outlet The Information
- New York Stock Exchange
- Netflix
EXPLANATION
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings told the tech outlet The Information that he donated $7 million in support of Harris to a Super PAC called the Republican Accountability PAC.
Hastings is the former CEO of Netflix, but a donation from Hastings does not equate to a donation from Netflix.
That article dropped on July 23. On July 22, the day before the donation news broke, Netflix’s stock price closed at $647.50. On July 25 when the post claiming a 40 percent drop in stock price was shared, it closed at $634.09.
This online calculator shows that’s a drop of 2.1 percent, not 40 percent.
As for the claim that subscriber numbers dropped due to the donation, a Netflix spokesperson told us, “This claim is false," and "We only disclose subscriber numbers during our quarterly earnings.”
Netflix’s last earnings call was July 18, before the donation news came out, so its impact wouldn’t be shown there.
I asked if there was any other way someone might learn Netflix’s subscriber numbers, and the spokesperson said they weren’t aware of any. They added:
“I would caution against using any numbers not reported by [Netflix] as they won’t be accurate.”
ANSWER
So we can tell you that any claim that Netflix subscriber numbers are down can't be verified, because that data isn't available.
We can verify that Netflix didn't donate to Kamala Harris, and the Hastings donation didn't lead to a major stock price drop for the streaming company.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
We should also note that when you zoom in on this post claiming a 40 percent stock price drop for Netflix, you see it has a very small "satire" disclaimer located in the bottom left corner. That tells us that particular post was never intended to be shared as fact.
