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29th Jan 2018

Why is one of the world’s richest inventors now selling flamethrowers to the general public?

Rory Cashin

Has Elon Musk gone full Bond villain?

The guy has apparently over 20 billion dollars to his name, is the brain behind the Tesla and the Space-X, constantly ranked by Forbes as one of the most powerful men in the world… so why is he selling flamethrowers online?

Being sold under the banner of his digging company – brilliantly named The Boring Company – Musk is selling his own brand of flamethrowers to anyone who might have €500 (or about €400) spare and happen to be looking to light things near them on fire.

Say hello to my little friend …

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on

Everyone assumed it was some kind of weird joke, even when the availability to pre-order popped up on their website, except that CNBC are now reporting that the company have already sold over $3.5 million worth of flamethrowers.

So it turns out there is a real market for flamethrowers. Who knew? (Answer: Everybody. We all knew.)

The real question… why? Why would a man with such lofty goals as to save the world with clean, renewable energy want the general public to get their hands on what he has called The World’s Safest Flamethrower?

As far as we can ascertain, he did it because he lost a bet.

Back in December, Musk said that if The Boring Company managed to sell 50,000 hats, then the company would start selling flamethrowers.

And guess what happened?

Our other guess is that Elon Musk is aware of an impending zombie apocalypse, and is simply arming the masses ahead of time.

One way or another, this guy is going to save the world.

Or end it.

We can’t quite tell which yet.

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