Philadelphia will never find itself short on claims to fame, but one contribution that many people might not know about is that it served as the destination Elon Musk chose when seeking an undergraduate education. Matriculating at the University of Pennsylvania, the South African earned two bachelor’s degrees before going on to become the business bigwig who serves as the CEO of Tesla Inc., SpaceX and Neuralink, and who founded The Boring Company. It is the fourth brainchild that has the 46-year-old entrepreneur set to further Philly’s sense of pride and torch contenders for the crown of America’s most novel city, as the infrastructure and tunnel construction company appears set to begin delivering the 20,000 flamethrowers it began selling in January.
Even four months in to this bold new world of promotional flamethrowers, it still feels like an elaborate joke. But Musk wasn’t kidding around, and the products generated at least $10 million for The Boring Company. At an information session last Thursday in Los Angeles, the entrepreneur, whose other out-of-the-box (more like out-of-this-world) suggestions include the colonization of Mars, shed more light on the future of the flamethrowers, now that Boring Company vans will deliver the incendiary tools. Having tweeted in December that the sale of 50,000 hats would lead to the flamethrowers’ introduction, Musk marketed them at $500 each the next month, with “delivery challenges” such as considerations of the fire producers’ propane contents and questions over safety concerns having delayed the completion of the commercial exchanges.
As noted earlier, the fact that someone would even ponder selling flamethrowers en masse might make us question said seller’s sanity, but Musk somehow sensed that consumers would have a burning desire to make like our ancestors upon their discovery of fire. Having also comically tweeted Feb. 2 that customs agencies’ gripes about the title of the soon-to-be-delivered object will lead The Boring Company to dub it “Not a flamethrower,” Musk is proving that commercial success often depends on blazing new trails no matter how odd one’s ideas or concepts might sound.
Customs problem solved! pic.twitter.com/6D0Fbm8NFI
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2018
We don’t know of anyone who secured one of the flamethrowers (though we would love to have such a surplus of disposable income), but we would bet that those who placed orders figure to be the life of a few parties or other occasions this summer. To those folks, we say throw flames responsibly. To Musk, we want to remind the UPenn alumnus that should he ever want to wield his brain power in a different setting, Philadelphia is still “The City that Loves You Back.”
