A gadget Elon Musk shared to troll whistleblowers has sold out just hours after it first appeared on the Tesla website.
The electric car company has faced a number of lawsuits in recent months as current and former employees made accusations of sexual harassment and racist abuse within the company.
In an apparent jab against the whistleblowers, Musk took to Twitter to promote the release of Tesla’s new stainless steel whistle, inspired by the company’s yet-to-be-released Cybertruck.
Alongside a link to the product, Musk wrote: ‘Blow the whistle on Tesla!’
The site described the Cyberwhistle as a ‘limited edition’, ‘premium collectible’ created with ‘medical grade’ material with a polished finish. It also comes with an ‘integrated attachment feature for added versatility’.
Though it no doubt functions much the same as the whistles you might get in a five-pack from the pound shop, the whistle was priced at $50 (£38) – much more than a lot of people would be willing to pay for a whistle. After all, unless you happen to be a PE teacher or a football coach, there just doesn’t seem to be much need for a whistle in day-to-day life.
Still, Musk decided to use the hefty price tag to poke fun at Apple’s microfibre polishing cloth, which is priced at $19, as he wrote: ‘Don’t waste your money on that silly Apple Cloth, buy our whistle instead.’
Musk’s techniques of persuasion evidently managed to win over a good number of customers as the product sold out online just hours after he promoted it.
Those looking to get their hands on one of the ‘premium collectibles’ must now turn to bidding sites such as eBay, where the whistle is being offered for between £150 and £800.
The release of the whistle comes after a federal court in California ordered Tesla in October to pay almost $137 million to a Black former employee who claimed he endured racial abuse while working for the firm between 2015 and 2016.
Last month, a worker from Tesla’s California factory also filed a lawsuit, making allegations of sexual harassment, including inappropriate touching, and claimed she had received no response from the firm’s human resources department even after filing complaints.
