What is Elon Musk Flamethrower?

The Elon Musk Flamethrower was a $500 handheld device sold by Musk's tunnel construction firm The Boring Company starting January 27th, 2018, marketed as a novelty stunt tied to an earlier hat-sales promise.

Where did Elon Musk Flamethrower come from?

Musk tweeted on December 10th, 2017 that he would sell a Boring Company flamethrower if the firm moved 50,000 branded hats; the store went live on January 27th, 2018.

What does Elon Musk Flamethrower mean?

It works as shorthand for Musk's tongue-in-cheek merch stunts: pitched as useful for roasting nuts and packaged like a rifle, the product cleared $4 million in sales in about two days.

How do you use Elon Musk Flamethrower?

The flamethrower was a real functioning device that cost $500, and Musk suggested buyers use it for roasting nuts; the roofing-torch-in-a-rifle-body design became the template for Musk-merch jokes.

Is Elon Musk Flamethrower still popular?

The 20,000-unit run sold out in 2018 and the item was rebranded as 'Not a Flamethrower' in June 2018 after customs and regulatory issues around the original name.

Elon Musk Flamethrower

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Published August 19, 2026

The Elon Musk Flamethrower was a $500 handheld device that Musk's tunnel construction firm The Boring Company began selling on January 27th, 2018 as a merch stunt tied to a hat-sales promise. The launch pulled in $4 million in pre-orders within days and was later rebranded 'Not a Flamethrower' after customs issues.

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Overview

The Elon Musk Flamethrower was a $500 handheld device that Musk's tunnel construction firm The Boring Company put up for sale on January 27th, 20182. The product shipped inside a plastic body meant to resemble a rifle, and Reddit users quickly claimed the internals looked like a standard roofing torch dressed up for effect3. Musk marketed the whole thing as a novelty stunt tied to a hat-sales promise the company had made two months earlier1.

The launch was a merch success. Sales cleared past $4 million within two days out of a planned run of 20,000 units1. In June 2018, the item was rebranded as 'Not a Flamethrower' after Musk said customs rules blocked shipments of anything labeled with the actual word3.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter (announcement) / The Boring Company website (sale)

Creator

Elon Musk

Date

2018

The Elon Musk Flamethrower started as a Twitter promise. On December 10th, 2017, Musk tweeted that if The Boring Company sold over 50,000 branded hats, he would follow up by selling a company flamethrower3. The hat quota was hit within weeks, and the flamethrower store went live on The Boring Company website on January 27th, 2018 at $500 plus tax2.

How It Spread

According to The Verge, Musk moved 1,000 units in the first three hours after the launch, another 2,000 during the following day, and cleared 7,000 by early January 29th1. The publication tracked the pace as pre-orders pushed past $4 million on a planned 20,000-unit release, and noted that Musk was pitching the device as useful for roasting nuts1.

A promotional video Musk posted, showing him running with the flamethrower in front of a photo of Earth, cleared 2 million views inside 24 hours of upload4. The stunt drew heavy attention across tech media as an example of Musk turning company merchandise into a headline-grabbing product event1.

How to Use This Meme

The Elon Musk Flamethrower was a physical product, not a template. The joke format that grew around it usually involved photoshopping or captioning Musk-style product announcements to name absurd next items on the roadmap, riffing on the roofing-torch-in-a-rifle-body reveal Reddit users flagged at launch3.