#1169 - Elon Musk

Joe Rogan (0:00)

Ha ha ha!

Four, three, two, one, boom. Thank you. Thanks for doing this, man. Really appreciate it.

Elon Musk (0:09)

You're welcome.

Joe Rogan (0:10)

It's very good to meet you.

Elon Musk (0:11)

Nice to meet you too.

Joe Rogan (0:12)

Thanks for not lighting this place on fire.

Elon Musk (0:13)

You're welcome. That's coming later.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

How does one, just in the middle of doing all the things you do, create cars, rockets, all this stuff you're doing, constantly innovating, decide to just make a flame thrower?

Elon Musk (0:32)

Well, we didn't put a lot of time into the flame thrower. This was an off-the-cuff thing.

sort of like, it's sort of a hobby company called The Boring Company, started out as a joke, and we decided to make it real and dig a tunnel under LA.

And then other people asked us to dig tunnels. And so we said yes in a few cases. And then we have a merchandise section that only has one piece of merchandise at a time. And we started off with a cap. And there was only one thing on, it was just boringcompany.com/cap, or hat. That's it. And then we sold the hats, limited edition. It just said The Boring Company. And then, I'm a big fan of Spaceballs, the movie. And in Spaceballs, yogurt goes through the merchandising section. And they have a flamethrower in the merchandising section of Spaceballs.

And the kids love that one. That's the line. When he pulls out the flamethrower, it's like, we should do a flamethrower. We should do a flamethrower.

Joe Rogan (1:52)

Does anybody tell you no? Does anybody go, Elon, maybe for yourself, but selling a flamethrower, the liabilities, all the people you're selling this device to, what kind of unhinged people are going to be buying a flamethrower in the first place? Do we really want to connect ourselves to all these potential arsonists?

Elon Musk (2:11)

Yeah, it's a terrible idea. Terrible. Shouldn't buy one. I said, don't buy this flamethrower, don't buy it.

Don't buy it, that's what I said. But still people bought it. There's nothing I can do to stop them.

Joe Rogan (2:25)

You build it, they will come.

Elon Musk (2:26)

I said, don't buy it, it's a bad idea.

Joe Rogan (2:29)

How many did you make?

Elon Musk (2:30)

It's dangerous, it's wrong, don't buy it. Still people bought it, I couldn't stop them.

Joe Rogan (2:38)

How many did you make?

Elon Musk (2:40)

20,000.

Joe Rogan (2:40)

And they're all gone.

Elon Musk (2:45)

In three, I think four days? But it sold out in four days.

Joe Rogan (2:49)

Are you going to do another run?

Elon Musk (2:52)

No.

Joe Rogan (2:53)

No, that's it?

Elon Musk (2:54)

Yes. I said we would do 20,000, we did 50,000 hats. And that was a million dollars. And they're like, okay, we'll sell something for 10 million. And that was 20,000 flamethrowers at $500 each.

They went fast.

Joe Rogan (3:19)

How do you have the time to do that, though? I mean, I understand that it's not a big deal in terms of all the other things that you do. But how do you have time to do anything? I just I don't understand your time management skills.

Elon Musk (3:31)

I mean, I didn't spend much time on this flamethrower. I mean, to be totally frank, it's actually just a roofing torch with an air rifle cover.

It's not a real flamethrower. It's still a flamethrower.

Joe Rogan (3:43)

Which is why it says not a flamethrower.

Elon Musk (3:45)

That's why we were very clear. This is not actually a flamethrower.

And also we were told that various countries would ban shipping of it, but they would not. They would ban flamethrowers. So we very to solve this problem for all the customs agencies, we labeled it not a flamethrower.

Joe Rogan (4:03)

Did it work? Is it effective?

Elon Musk (4:06)

I don't know. I think so. Yes.

Joe Rogan (4:07)

So far. Yes.

Elon Musk (4:09)

Because they said you can not super flamethrower.

Joe Rogan (4:11)

But you do so many different things. Forget about the flamethrower. Like, how do you do all that other shit? Like, how does one decide to fix LA traffic by drilling holes in the ground? And who do you even approach with that? Like when you have this idea, who do you talk to about that?

Elon Musk (4:26)

I mean, I'm not saying it's going to be successful or sort of, you know, it's like asserting that it's going to be successful. But so far, I've lived in LA for 16 years, and the traffic has always been terrible. And so I don't see any other like ideas for improving the traffic.