Elon Musk’s “tunneling” startup, The Boring Company, released their flamethrower for pre-order a few days ago — and in approximately 48 hours, they’ve sold $5m worth of fire spitters at $500 a pop.
Alright. What the heck’s going on here?
Well, it started with some hats…
While the Boring Company was created to make holes in the ground the size of Musk’s ego, it’s really served more as a platform for quirky, highly lucrative side-goofs — like selling Boring Company hats for $20 apiece.
Last month, Musk tweeted out the incentive: “After 50k hats, we will start selling The Boring Company flamethrower.”
That challenge took Musk all of 14 days to meet: in less than a month, the company netted $1m in hat revenue.
So, Musk had to live up to his promise
Described as a glorified “roofing torch,” the Boring flamethrower has already sold half its stock (the company “only” plans to release 20k units).
In 2017, Musk failed to deliver on some of his more ambitious goals (like producing 5k Model 3 Teslas per week) — so it’s good to see him hitting his mark here.
It’s possible this is a PR stunt meant to distract from his other production shortcomings. But it’s also entirely possible that the guy’s just having fun in the most Muskalicious way imaginable.