Elon Musk's Flamethrower Bags $3.5 Million During First Day Sales
It's official, Elon Musk can make millions out of pretty much anything, even his jokes. Today, the billionaire revealed that first-day sales of The Boring Company's flamethrower have already topped 7,000 units which roughly translate to around $3.5 million.
The flamethrower was originally intended as a joke to help the company sell more hats. Musk announced back in December that if his company sold 50,000 hats, it would start selling flamethrowers. Needless to say, the marketing ploy worked.
The flamethrowers went up for sale Sunday with a pre-order price of $500. Musk himself posted an Instagram video of himself playing with the firebreathing apparatus and obviously getting a huge kick out of it. Fans quickly channelled their inner Fry and quickly said, "shut up and take my money."
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Musk continues to embrace the silliness of selling a real flamethrower although he admits it will come pretty handy in a zombie apocalypse – which he is not planning by the way. He also joked that the flamethrower was "sentient," its safe word is "cryptocurrency," and it "comes with a free blockchain."
Addressing legal and safety concerns, Musk said that the flamethrower's flame has a range of fewer than 10 feet in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulations. Musk and his firm also threw in an "overpriced" fire extinguisher for an extra $30 so customers won't burn their house down. The toy/zombie-killing weapon will begin shipping in spring according to company's website.
Jokes aside, The Boring Company is another part of Musk's world-changing plan to revolutionize how humanity lives. The infrastructure and tunnel construction company were founded in 2016 with the aim of building tunnels cheaply and quickly in order to make Musk's vision of the Hyperloop transit system possible.
The company is currently planning the construction of an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.
