Although at the moment Elon Musk is working to launch the largest and most powerful rocket on Earth and is committed to starting the large-scale production of a new electric car, in recent days he has attracted attention for anything else: a flamethrower. The project to sell a kind of rifle that shoots a flame of a few centimeters was born at the end of last year, but many people had immediately thought it was one of the jokes that Musk writes every now and then on Twitter. A few months later, however, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla actually put a working flamethrower up for sale, drawing praise from its many fans and criticism from those who think the new product is useless or dangerous.
At the end of last year Musk had put up for sale on the site of Boring Company – his company that designs underground transportation systems to avoid traffic in big cities – a cap with the company logo, saying that if he had sold 50,000 in short. after 50k hats, we will start selling The Boring Company flamethrower
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk ) December 11, 2017
In a few days the hat reached the goal set by Musk, who after a few weeks kept his promise by putting the flamethrower. Over the past weekend Musk posted a video on Instagram showing the new gadget in operation, which circulated a lot online helping to make the initiative known.
Don't do this. Also, I want to be clear that a flamethrower is a super terrible idea. Definitely don't buy one. Unless you like fun.
In less than a day, the Boring Company site sold one thousand of the 20,000 flamethrowers produced for the initiative, at a price of $ 500 each. Orders continued to increase in the following hours and, on the evening of Monday, January 29, Musk announced on Twitter that he had sold about 10 thousand, with revenues of around 5 million dollars. The problem is that many of those flamethrowers may never reach the buyers, at least in California, where some politicians have called the initiative dangerous and are thinking of some legal solution to prevent their spread.
In the United States, possession of flamethrowers is not prohibited by federal law and is legal in 48 states, while in California and Maryland there are restrictions. Californian laws make it a crime to own tools that produce flames that reach at least 3 meters away. The restrictions are for safety reasons and to reduce the risk of fires that can quickly spiral out of control, in one of the areas most exposed to large fires in the United States.
Musk explained in a tweet that his flamethrower complies with the law and does not produce such a long flame: “I would be much more scared of a steak knife,” he wrote.
ATF says any flamethrower with a flame shorter than 10 ft is A-ok. Our design is max fun for least danger. I'd be way more scared of a steak knife.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2018
Miguel Santiago, Democrat representative in the California General Assembly, thinks otherwise and has said he wants to introduce new rules to prevent the Boring Company from selling its flamethrowers, at least in his state. Santiago explained that the state of California and the city of Los Angeles have relied on Musk's company to reduce the traffic problem, with the construction of new tunnels and its experimental systems for the automatic transport of vehicles underground at high speed: “This deviation it sounds like a slap in the face ”. In a statement, Santiago acknowledges Musk's qualities and abilities, but questions his choice by wondering what consequences there could be for the police and firefighters if the flamethrowers were to fall into the wrong hands or to inexperienced people.
Despite the video, tweets and page to pre-order the flamethrower in the Boring Company online store, many are still wondering if Musk is serious or not. In the past, he has made fun of fans and journalists on several occasions, making announcements that have turned out to be jokes. Last month he announced he wanted to take his Tesla Roadster, one of the first models his company built, into space; later he said it was a joke, but then he announced that he was serious and that he really wanted to launch it as a load of his Falcon Heavy, the huge rocket whose departure is scheduled for the first days of February. Musk is also receiving criticism at this time for the delays that have accumulated in the production of the Model 3, Tesla's first mass-produced electric car. The demand is very high, but it seems unlikely that the company will be able to produce the half million vehicles planned for 2018. Their sale should still be less complicated than that of the flamethrowers, at least in California.
