Elon Musk: I’ll dub my flamethrower “Not a Flamethrower” to thwart customs

Last weekend, the Boring Company offered 20,000 novelty flamethrowers for sale. By Thursday, all 20,000 had sold out. But now Elon Musk says the company has hit an obstacle.

“Some customs agencies are saying they won’t allow shipment of anything called a ‘Flamethrower,'” Musk tweeted on Friday night. “To solve this, we are renaming it ‘Not a Flamethrower.'”

To be fair, that might be a more accurate label. As Ars Technica’s Ron Amadeo wrote earlier this week, the Boring Company’s “flamethrower” looks like it’s “nothing more than a propane torch with fancy styling.”

Military-grade flamethrowers can project flames 30 to 100 feet. The Boring Company’s device is designed to shoot flames less than 10 feet. Conveniently, that makes it compliant with a California law regulating sales of flame-throwing devices with a range higher than that amount. But it also means that calling it a flamethrower in the first place is a bit of a stretch.

Musk is apparently making things up as he goes along here. In a follow-up tweet, Musk suggested he might dub the novelty product a “Temperature Enhancement Device” instead to satisfy customs officials.

Musk also announced that purchasers of these $500 flamethrowers—or whatever he winds up calling them—will come packaged with a free Boring Company fire extinguisher. They’ll also come with individual serial numbers.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1254039