- Musician Neil Young has hit out at Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, calling him the company’s “big problem.”
- Ek has backed keeping Joe Rogan’s podcast on Spotify despite recent controversy.
- Scientists and healthcare professionals have expressed concerns that Rogan’s podcasts spread Covid misinformation.
Musician Neil Young has urged Spotify employees to “get out of the place before it eats up your soul.”
Young’s statement on Monday came as Spotify CEO Daniel Ek doubled down in support of controversial podcaster Joe Rogan.
“To the workers at SPOTIFY, I say Daniel Ek is your big problem — not Joe Rogan. Ek pulls the strings,” Young wrote on his website.
“The goals stated by Ek are about numbers — not art, not creativity,” Young added.
In January, Young and singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell requested their music be taken off the platform in protest of Rogan’s continued support from Spotify.
That same month, 270 doctors, nurses, scientists, and educators issued an open letter calling on Spotify “to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform” after a December 31 episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast featured Robert Malone, MD, a conspiracy theorist who referred to the pandemic as “mass formation psychosis.”
Rogan, the letter said, “has a concerning history of broadcasting misinformation, particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. By allowing the propagation of false and societally harmful assertions, Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research and sow doubt.”
At a company town hall last week, Ek defended Spotify’s decision to keep streaming Rogan’s podcast.
“If we want even a shot at achieving our bold ambitions, it will mean having content on Spotify that many of us may not be proud to be associated with,” Ek said, according to The Verge. “Not anything goes, but there will be opinions, ideas, and beliefs that we disagree with strongly and even makes us angry or sad.”
On Sunday, Ek backed the Rogan again after a viral video resurfaced showing the podcast host using the N-world multiple times on his show.
“I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer,” Ek in a staff memo first reported by Axios’ Sara Fischer.
Spotify paid more than $100 million to acquire the rights to Rogan’s popular podcast, according to the Wall Street Journal. His show was added to the streaming platform in September 2020.
Spotify did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment on Young’s latest statement.
