Elon Musk is rather known for his SpaceX project and Tesla Cars, but it didn’t ever seem that a “flame-thrower” was his thing. On the contrary, The Boring Company, which is one of the latest companies owned by Elon Musk, has managed to sell $5 million worth of flamethrowers. That’s rather unusual for a drilling company like The Boring Company.
The flamethrower attracted masses after The Boring Company’s CEO unveiled it last Saturday via a social media platform. Therefore, all it took were just 2-3 days to pull this much sale out of nothing.
As for the flamethrower, it’s available at a moderate price tag of $500 (around £355 or AU$620). The flamethrower features a logo of The Boring Company. Such was the response to these flamethrowers, that 7,000 flamethrowers had been already purchased by the public by the start of Monday. This was mentioned by Elon Musk in his tweet. There were just 20,000 units of flamethrower produced, and in a further tweet, the sales have crossed even 10,000. Therefore, if you plan to get one you should hurry.
This flamethrower fiasco has let us see a very different side of Elon Musk who has rather many serious companies to attend to, like the Tesla, and SpaceX. Though, to publicize the flamethrower, a much serious person like him surprisingly, went on to create his own video using The Boring Company’s Flamethrower and making a run at the cameraman, trying to turn it on meanwhile. This video was posted on Instagram, and since then has succeeded a very large number of views. P.S Please don’t try this at home.
If you are going to play with a dangerous weapon like a flamethrower, then expect a couple of fires at least. To avoid an accident, The Boring Company also managed to release yet another of its products; The Fire Extinguisher. Though, available at $30 (Around £20 or AU$40), the company itself admits that the fire extinguisher is rather overpriced. But then who doesn’t want such branded stuff just to add to the collection. If you are keen on having these products, then expect the weapon to be delivered to you by the start of spring.
Elon Musk also resorted to some hilarious tweets related to his Flamethrower. One of these tweets even managed to end up with more than 100,000 likes.
But wait, there’s more: the flamethrower is sentient, its safe word is “cryptocurrency” and it comes with a free blockchain
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 29, 2018
As far as the actual purpose of the Boring Company, it is quite different from what was planned initially. When the company was unveiled, it was more of a building company who would build tunnels. These tunneling would have been underground and in those cities, which heavily needed an underground tunneling system since, in those areas, it is usual to find heavy traffic all the time
Maybe, it will stick to their initial plan, but as for now, the company decided to make some easy money, utilizing the Elon Musk’s image and popularity, by selling some hats and now flamethrowers. A lot of diversity, right?
In another tweet, Elon Musk joked about purposefully building a zombie army to create a demand for its flamethrowers. He then went on to reply to his own tweet stating that one needs millions of zombies to actually cause an apocalypse. He surely can’t have a factory big enough produce zombies on such a large number.
The rumor that I’m secretly creating a zombie apocalypse to generate demand for flamethrowers is completely false
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2018
Not only this, but even Elon Musk’s fans resort to selling different items now and then. There is a company by the name of “The Elon Musk’s Company”, which is not related to Elon Musk in any way except for the name. The company manufactures an Air Freshener, which is rather an unusual type of product as compared to Elon Musk’s seriousness about innovation.
Though, it’s debatable if a weapon like a flamethrower should be made available to the public so easily. What, if someone has other sinister plans involving the flamethrower.
In order to avoid such an incident, there was a report by Los-Angles times, in which Liam Dillon, California Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), spoke that a legislation is in order which shall prevent the sales of Elon Musk’s flamethrowers to the public, if not all over the US, but at least in the state of California. If this legislation does get released, it would be late already since Musk has already managed to sell much of his inventory.
Though, it still might not be legal to have this weapon, since it’s not yet forbidden to own one, in any of the states. Elon Musk clarified this in a reply to one of the customers, who had concerns about the Flamethrower’s legality.
I mean sure I’ll preorder. This feels illegal doe…
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) January 28, 2018
“The state of California and the county and city of Los Angeles have entrusted Mr. Musk to help alleviate a real public policy problem here by executing a tunnel under the city to help alleviate traffic,” stated Santiago in response to the partnership between The Boring Company and California state to build tunnels underneath. “This deviation feels like a slap in the face.” Santiago then voiced his opinion. Initially, Santiago even thought that the Flamethrower was just for fun’s sake and wasn’t actually going to see the light.
Therefore, a release of a weapon like a Flamethrower, even if it passes the limits, shocked many, since it can unintentionally pose some kind of a threat if not serious to others.
Update 1156 P.M 30th January : In a tweet released two hours ago, by Musk, 15,000 flamethrowers have already been sold. This means that there are just 5,000 left, therefore now is the time if you were planning to get one.