Friedman explicitly argued that a company has no social responsibility other than "to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game." I don't think he was endorsing bad behavior, per se, but he was condemning any behavior that could be considered "good" but even modestly value-reducing.

There are certainly some economists who might argue that indeed it's become nonsense excuses, including The Economist, which wrote in 2016 that shareholder value theory had become "a license for bad conduct, including skimping on investment, exorbitant pay, high leverage, silly takeovers, accounting shenanigans and a craze for share buy-backs."

(Also, apparently I had the year wrong -- Friedman wrote in 1970, not 1975.)