Did I get the CEO of AG1 Fired?

Sometimes journalism DOES make a difference.

Late last week the CEO of Athletic Greens, Chris Ashenden, stepped down from his role at the company, and it seems likely that I had something to do with that. If you happened to miss it, back in May I put out a post here on Substack about how the founder of the billion-dollar supplement company was involved in a criminal real estate scam in his native country of New Zealand. Ashenden fled the court proceedings before he was convicted on almost 50 counts of breaching New Zealand’s fair trading laws, and made his way to Arizona where he founded AG1.

Before I released the piece, I reached out to Athletic Greens for comment and was a little surprised by their allergic response to my questions. They didn’t only deny Ashenden’s criminal past, but they also hired Megan Meier of MWPP, one of the most expensive law firms in the country to shut my reporting down. They were so assertive in their responses that I was worried that I had made an error that possibly opened myself up to litigation. For some context: this was the lawyer who got FOX News to settle a $787 million defamation claim. It was legitimately intimidating.

I brought a team of lawyers from New York and Colorado together and went over her letters in detail. It soon became clear that not only were my facts correct, but the Megan Meier and AG1 were deliberately misconstruing the facts—if not outright lying—to protect the company’s image. Once it was clear they had no case, I went on to publish the report.

The video has gone on to be a hit on YouTube with more than 800,000 views. It’s likely that AG1’s aggressive stance only increased the video’s reach, prompting many commenters to cancel their subscriptions to the $100/month mostly spirulina supplement bag.

AG1 immediately went into damage control mode. A few days later a lawyer friend of mine noticed that AG1 posted a job opening for a new legal team on Linked-in.

While I don’t know for sure, it seems to me that Meier was no longer working with AG1. Perhaps she quit of her own volition after she realized that Chris Ashenden had been lying to her about his criminal past. Alternatively, AG1 might have fired her after she failed to “nix” my story. The last email she sent me, Meier said she was “disappointed” in my reporting.

Here’s an excerpt of what I wrote back.

It appears to me that your client has withheld information from you regarding his own past, was purposely misdirecting you or outright lying. You repeatedly used the word "defamation" in your correspondence. You repeatedly, and inaccurately stated that the charges against Ashenden occurred in Civil, not Criminal court. You also stated that he was not convicted on criminal charges.  You presented me with misleading documentation that Ashenden had no "criminal convictions" and omitted that New Zealand law conceals convictions after 7 years. Though I have called your office, and written to you for clarification on the clean records act, you did not respond to my good-faith efforts.  You never corrected the statements even though I gave you several opportunities. I hope that you are aware by now that the judgements in 2010 and 2011 were, indeed, criminal in nature. 

I figured that was the end of it. Then, on July 24th, a website that looks like it mostly reprints press releases called AthleteTech reported that Chris Ashenden had stepped down from his position as CEO. Kat Cole, who had served as president at AG1 since 2021 stepped up to the top spot.

While AG1 has not commented specifically on the impact that my video had on the company, it’s hard to see Ashenden’s move as anything but a move to distance itself from its past.

The reason that AG1 is so much more expensive than similar bags of dehydrated greens is not because its proprietary formula is miraculously effective, rather, because it gives a substantial percentage of its retail price to the influencers to sell it to their audiences. AG1 is mostly just marketing.

Athletic Greens will always have a shady real estate scam embedded in its DNA.

While I take this as a tiny victory for the value of independent journalism in the world, I’m sure that even though Ashenden has left his post he is going to be fine. He still controls a sizable number of shares in the now- 1.2 billion dollar company and appears to be spending his time divided between mansions in Medellin Colombia and Miami.

I never reached out to him specifically, but there was one comment that came in on my video once it went live that made me think that, just maybe, he’s watching what I’m doing very closely.

I’m going to keep that tiny sliver of internet joy for all my premium subscribers who have helped make this channel what it is. Indeed, I don’t think I could do it without them.

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