Elon Musk Receives $2 Million in Flamethrower Pre-Orders Within 24 Hours

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has once again begun pre-selling items before they’re ready to ship — this time his chosen product is a flamethrower.

Business Insider UK reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has opened pre-orders for his latest product — flamethrowers. The fire-spitting gun will be developed and sold by Musk’s Boring Company. 20,000 of the flamethrowers were put on pre-sale at $500 per gun this week. Within 24 hours, 4000 pre-orders were placed worth approximately $2 million. Marketing copy on the Boring Company’s website notes that the flamethrower “May not be used on Boring Company decorative lacquered hay bales or Boring Company dockside munitions warehouses.”

Musk floated the idea of a flamethrower in December of 2017 but many assumed this was a joke, but it turns out the billionaire tech CEO was entirely serious.

After 50k hats, we will start selling The Boring Company flamethrower

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2017

Musk has since joked about creating a zombie apocalypse to boost the sales of the flamethrowers.

The rumor that I’m secretly creating a zombie apocalypse to generate demand for flamethrowers is completely false

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2018

You’d need millions of zombies for a so-called “apocalypse” anyway. Where would I even get a factory big enough to make so many!?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2018

Musk also posted a short video of himself to Instagram, wielding the flamethrower before charging the camera with it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeeYW0NA1HU/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_ufi_control

The Boring Company states that the flamethrowers will ship by the Spring. Hopefully, this is one product that Musk actually manages to deliver on time. Tesla has had numerous issues with shipping their vehicles on time, the company has faced a number of production delays on their Model 3 cars in recent months. In November of 2017 it was reported that the company’s stock lost $5.5 billion in value following a six-month delay of their Model 3 cars. Musk has since performed a number of marketing stunts in an attempt to regain confidence in his companies such as camping out on the roof of Tesla’s Gigafactory premises shortly after hundreds of employees had been let go. Musk tweeted about the campout saying, “Reason I camped on the roof was because it was less time than driving to a hotel room in Reno. Production hell, ~8th circle…”

Musk also revealed that he would forego a salary from Tesla if the company did not reach certain valuation goals, of course, Musk is already vastly wealthy. Musk’s salary was also not linked to Tesla’s production goals but rather their valuation goals meaning as long as Musk keeps making big promises and increasing the company’s stock prices, he’s still set to receive his promised Tesla salary.