PewDiePie_at_PAX_2015
PewDiePie at PAX Prime 2015, August 29, 2015. Camknows, Wikimedia Commons

The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) and YouTube broke up business relationships with Felix Kjellberg, also known as PewDiePie, on Monday. The actions of the two companies were led by the alleged anti-Semitic videos of the YouTube star.

Disney acted upon the report of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) regarding the videos. WSJ reported that nine PewDiePie videos contained anti-Semitic jokes or used Nazi imagery for the past six months. In a Jan. 11 video, PewDiePie paid a couple of men from a freelance marketplace to make a sign that read, “Death to all Jews,” then laugh and dance as they hold it.

Days after, PewDiePie also featured a man dressed as Jesus saying, “Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong.” Google removed ads from the Jan. 1 video and cancelled “Scare PewDiePie” season two. The YouTube star's channel was also removed from Google Preferred. The Swedish vlogger will still be able to run ads on his channel — he just won’t be part of the premium package (with premium rates) anymore.

“I think it’s important to say something and I want to make one thing clear: I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes. … Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive,” PewDiePie wrote on his Tumblr blog. At present, the 27-year old Swedish web-based comedian and video producer PewDiePie has 53 million subscribers on YouTube.

In December 2016, PewDiePie was named by Forbes as the highest-earning YouTuber with his annual income of US$15 million (AU$19.48 million). PewDiePie's income in 2016 was 20 percent higher than in 2015. This was due to his YouTube Red series Scare PewDiePie and his book "This Book Loves You."

Here are some reactions from Twitter regarding the breaking up business relationships of Disney and YouTube with PewDiePie.

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