Vanity Fair UK - 11.2019

Elon Musk wants

to colonize Mars.

W

ith their explosive story on Harvey Weinstein, New York

Times reporters and New Establishment veterans Megan

Twohey and Jodi Kantor planted a grenade in the cul-

tural psyche and pulled the pin. They pursued scraps of whispers

and convinced very unwilling sources to speak out against one

of the most powerful men in Hollywood, all the while butting up

against a legal system—white-shoe lawyers, corporate obfusca-

tion, nondisclosure agreements—designed to protect him. The

resulting exposé divided the modern world into two distinct

epochs: before the Weinstein story broke, and after.

There’s de€initely been a palpable shift in institutions and

mores and minds. Workplaces have installed entire new rule

books; media outlets are much more responsive to sexual scan-

dal; and powerful men are on notice as to how they should behave.

Yet on a deeper level, the e„ects of the #MeToo movement are

harder to quantify. Women are still ‡ghting for their place in poli-

tics and industry. Donald Trump remains in the White House

despite multiple allegations of sexual assault. When writer E. Jean

Carroll recently wrote, very believably, of being raped by Trump

in a department-store dressing room in the mid 1990s, the New

York Times hardly treated it as news. (Trump has denied the

allegation.) Meanwhile, men who have acknowledged sexual

harassment and worse, who apologized and went underground,

are now attempting to resurface.

Kantor and Twohey chronicle some of this paradigm shift in

their new book, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story

That Helped Ignite a Movement, which presents a ticktock of

their e„orts to unmask Weinstein, as well as their reporting on

Christine Blasey Ford’s agonizing decision to testify against

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. They go deeper on the

topic here, parsing the systems that have failed, the movement

that’s picked up the slack, and the new reality it has left in its wake.

#METOO’S UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Megan Twohey: Our article in October 2017 felt like it was

just the beginning. We had been able to connect some of the

dots about Harvey Weinstein’s decades of alleged predation

and those who helped him, but there were still so many press-

ing questions. There was the question of the women who faced

wrenching decisions as they debated whether or not to come

forward and share their stories. There was the question of the

machinery in place to silence those women and try to block

our investigation.

We wanted to pull the curtain back on that machinery. And

we wanted to get into the question of complicity. One of the

most pressing questions when it comes to these individual

predators is, this was somebody who was engaged in this behav-

ior for decades. Who were the individuals and institutions that

glimpsed that wrongdoing, and what did they do about it?

Trying to save Earth, but will settle

for nuking Mars. Sixty percent

visionary; 40 percent crazy.

8

STEVE SCHWARZMAN

Blackstone CEO

and Trump homie AGE: 72

NET WORTH: $17.3 billion

Schwarzman may be in a režective

mood as he hands the reins of his

private-equity behemoth

to his successor, Jonathan Gray,

but he remains a giant on Wall

Street and in Washington, where

he has established himself

as Trump’s “China whisperer.”

9

OPRAH

America’s talk therapist,

multibillionaire AGE: 65

“I don’t want to run,” she

protested. “I am not trying to test

any waters, don’t want to go

in those waters.” It’s okay, she’s

bigger than the presidency.

10

ADAM NEUMANN

WeWork cofounder and CEO,

magical thinker AGE: 40

Neumann, the master salesman

and creative accountant behind

“community-adjusted EBITDA”

and “space-as-a-service,” is now

the largest landlord in New York

City and London. He also loses

about $219,000 an hour. Says

Adam: “We do not lose money,

we invest money in the future.”

Instagram, WhatsApp, and

Facebook into one inseparable

blob. Ingenious, a little

sinister, and perfectly on brand.

6

SHARI REDSTONE

Vice-chairwoman, CBS

and Viacom AGE: 65

Redstone seized control of her

father’s empire, ousted Moonves,

and may soon recombine

CBS and Viacom, ful‡lling a

$30 billion bid for renewed

relevance as a media kingpin.

7

ELON MUSK

Serial entrepreneur behind

Tesla and SpaceX AGE: 48

Musk vs. Bezos

Space Race

ROCKETS

Falcon HeavyNew Glenn

70m

(230 ft.)

82m

(269 ft.)

SATELLITES

Starlink

has received

FCC approval

for more

than 12,000

satellites.

Project Kuiper

hopes to

launch 3,236

satellites,

according to

the FCC.

LAUNCHES

SpaceXBlue Origin

7811

ELON MUSKJEFF BEZOS

#MeToo and

What Came After

THE REPORTERS WHO HELPED IGNITE A MOVEMENT

REFLECT ON ITS STUNNING SUCCESS—AND THE ENORMOUS

WORK THAT REMAINS BY CLAIRE LANDSBAUM

Ÿ

Oprah

¡

Shari

Redstone

84

PHOTOGRAPHS: LEFT, BY KEVIN WINTER; RIGHT, BY MIKE MARSLAND/WIREIMAGE; BOTH FROM GETTY IMAGES

NOVEMBER 2019