Did this NFT send Elon Musk to therapy?

The story behind the story.

Dear Reader,

Shortly after we published the Blue Origin whistleblower story, we got a submission to our tip line. 

It was from an employee at SpaceX, the aerospace company run by Ariella’s personal pet peeve, Elon Musk. She let out a yelp when she saw it.

We got in touch with the woman, a build reliability engineer named Ashley, over Signal. Her photo had been used in SpaceX recruiting materials for years:

Knowing this was a workplace led by Elon Musk, we suspected what her story might be about.

We scheduled a time to speak with her over the phone. Meanwhile, Elon was in one of his frisky Twitter moods again: 

Tweeting an invitation to “blow the whistle” on Tesla, using a “cyber whistle” manufactured for the purpose of mocking (or subtly intimidating) would-be whistleblowers.

Don’t mind if we do, Elon.

On the phone, Ashley told us about incident after incident of sexual harassment she endured working at SpaceX. Like many whistleblowers, she had spent years trying to get the company to address the issue from within.

In the interval, her butt was grabbed, a man ran his hand over the front of her shirt, men stared at her endlessly while she worked, and she was hit on constantly at work events and via late night Instagram messages. Each and every time something happened, she reported it to HR. Each and every time, no action was taken and the men involved stayed in their positions. She, on the other hand, was threatened with firing after she recorded a meeting with HR, who said she broke the law. 

A legal aside: in an employment law case, you need evidence. Yet, in some states, it is illegal to record other parties without their consent, and many companies can come after you for downloading or taking photos of company property. So, as you might imagine, the cards are already quite stacked against the employee.

She suspected change would only come if she went public. But like most people facing down a powerful person or company, she was afraid. Elon Musk had just been named TIME magazine’s “Man of the Year.” He tweets sexist things on a regular basis with impunity. 

We put her in touch with employment attorney Vince White, who helped her talk through her options. 

The next time we heard from Ashley, she told us she had decided to quit. She was giving up any potential severance for the express purpose of not signing an NDA. Quitting with no safety net is a big deal, but she did not want to be muzzled.

She was ready to talk–in the form of a Lioness essay. 

We began outreach to reporters, to coordinate news articles with the release of her story on our website. We worked with her to craft her essay and document her allegations. We spoke to other women who had also experienced harassment at the company, and went to SpaceX for comment. Musk, predictably, did not respond to Lioness’s request. 

We mulled over another approach to get his attention: to do unto Musk as Musk would do to others. 

We enlisted London artist Jason Measures to create a non-fungible-token (NFT) artwork. We imagined Elon Musk riding a cyber-whistle-shaped rocket towards Mars. In his hand he would clutch libertarian author Ayn Rand’s book, as 69-ing whistles chased after him, Dogecoin flying out of his pocket. After much back and forth, and feedback from Lioness:

Jay, a good sport, manages to nail it:

We list the NFT for 6.9 ETH, an attempt to hack the cryptocurrency phenomenon for new purposes: subversive journalism. 

Making a foray into the world of crypto-bros isn’t for the faint of heart, but word on the street is that NFTs featuring Elon sell well. Might a buyer, blowing his Tesla cyber whistle while trading crypto in his parents’ basement, mistake it for fan art? (Because let’s face it, the guy is probably high.) And unwittingly contribute to a legal fund to protect a Musk whistleblower?

Lioness gets flak online (surprised, so surprised!) for minting the NFT. Naysayers claim that Lioness is trying to profit off of someone else’s pain. Lawyers warn that Musk might sue us. A whistleblower activist we last encountered in a Zoom breakout group praising Lioness’s work now subtweets us, grousing that crowdfunding journalistic endeavors via NFT is “ridiculous.”  

Ridiculous, yes. Because the world is ridiculous. And checking power takes money. Harness the absurdity for something other than a digital degenerate ape!

All that aside, there is this: the women who had been sexually harassed at work find hijacking Musk’s juvenile humor to be extremely therapeutic.

We published the essay. The trolls came quickly.

😂 Welcome to the Ministry of Truth! Ashley noted that the misogynist Reddit comments prove the point of her essay. Touché.

Elon, the day after the essay is published and the NFT minted, (coincidentally, or not?) tweets:

Meanwhile, back at Lioness HQ a former lover of Ariella’s resurfaces, in need of a therapy session of his own, accusing her of stealing his NFT concept. A year prior, he had told her of an idea for a cartoon NFT to fund his own bad idea for a short film.

Ariella invited the ex-lover to review their email correspondence with the artist, assuring him that he did not even cross her mind in the creation of the NFT. 

Naturally, the ex-lover could not imagine himself not crossing her mind, let alone not having a central role in her work.

There are a lot of MMM (mediocre monied men) in an uproar over this story. Who cares!

Back to the point - Ashley, while she obviously doesn’t love being sexually harassed at work, feels very strongly that one part of her story that some are overlooking is the disregard for the environment she saw at SpaceX. 

An environmental plan that she and other engineers had sent to Elon as part of a project to make SpaceX carbon neutral by 2030 was dismissed by Elon, who closed them down with: “We have wind and solar energy.” 

Later, working with the very team Ashley had assembled, an engineer came up with a technology for turning CO2 into rocket fuel. Hours after we went to SpaceX for comment before publishing Ashley’s piece…lo and behold, a tweet for everything!:

How unlike a MMM to take up a woman’s idea he earlier shot down…

In the end, the NFT didn’t sell, but Elon didn’t sue, either, bless his heart. That doesn’t mean Ashley’s story didn’t have a huge impact, though. 

Many people fear whistleblowing because of the backlash that can come with it, especially for women speaking out about sexual harassment. There was no shortage of that in Ashley’s case. However, Ashley’s case illustrates the quieter, rewarding side of whistleblowing: the wave of support you can receive after coming forward.

In Ashley’s case, more than 80 people from SpaceX reached out to her in solidarity. Many women inside the company thanked her for validating their experiences. Another person asked her to be the co-founder of a sustainable rocket company they were starting. 

Things also began to shift, ever so slightly, internally at SpaceX. A company-wide email was sent out, urging people to come forward if they saw incidents of harassment, and admitting the failures that had taken place internally. While Elon Musk may still be wearing his TITS U merch while rallying his disciples, perhaps some men at SpaceX will think twice before running their hands over a female colleague’s torso.

As for Ashley, she has begun work on her own company, Green Aero. She is developing non-petrol dependent fuels as a practical long term alternative to traditional aerospace fuels. She has since heard from old colleagues that no one has taken down the nameplate from her old desk at SpaceX, nor repurposed her workspace. 

Here’s hoping they use the vacant space to put up a statue of her. With a name plate that says, “Lest you forget, motherfuckers.” 

A reminder, of sorts, not to grab a colleague’s butt the next time someone is tempted.

Until the next story,

Amber + Ariella