Elon Musk Now Selling Flamethrowers

Elon Musk, the eccentric multi-billionaire behind Tesla and SpaceX, is breaking into a new market with his latest product: The Boring Company Flamethrower.

Musk launched the flamethrower on Saturday, posting photos, videos, and — most importantly — links to order it on social media. He seemed to have fun promoting the new product, joking and reacting with fans throughout the night as the number of orders climbed. At Musk’s last check-in, The Boring Company had received 7,000 orders, out of the 20,000 flamethrowers they reportedly have available.

The flamethrower retails for $500, with an additional $210 charge for shipping applied at check-out. The company’s website warns that international customers will likely face additional charges at customs. For $30 extra, they’ll throw in an official Boring Company fire extinguisher. The whole ad is ironic and light-hearted, as the product seems to be a fun stunt to raise publicity and help fund The Boring Company’s real work.

The Boring Company intends to help create vast networks of tunnels under every major city in the United States to help alleviate the problem of traffic — and many others along the way. Their website describes in layman’s terms the ways in which they intend to do this, primarily by investing in and developing technology that will increase the speed and safety of constructing tunnels by a factor of ten.

The tunnels would use Loop, a high-speed electric mass-transit system. Each “electric skate” as they’re called will be able to carry up to 16 passengers at a time, and will be able to travel at up to 150 miles per hour. The company also hopes to build tunnels between cities for Hyperloop, which will travel at over 600 miles per hour. Musk often boasts that this system will allow people to travel between New York and Washington D.C. in half an hour.

The Boring Company is privately funded, and apparently commercially sold flamethrowers are their latest scheme for generating revenue. The company has sold one big product before — a simple baseball cap with The Boring Company logo on it. They sold 50,000 hats and then stopped producing them. Flamethrowers will be the real test of their brand recognition. Hopefully the company will reach their 20,000 mark and we’ll be cruising between New York and L.A. underground in no time.