Elon Musk rebrands Boring Company Flamethrower to avoid customs troubles

There seems to be many obstacles appearing for Elon Musk’s flamethrower, from government officials attempting to intervene, to customs agencies now refusing to ship something with such a volatile name. Of course, Musk isn’t backing down, reeling off alternatives he could call it instead.

Apparently, some customs agents are particularly fussy about allowing shipments of items dubbed as flamethrowers, and it’s rather understandable when the first thoughts prompted are the harmful military-grade variants that spit flames between 30 feet to a whopping 100 feet, and the fact that Musk has managed to sell all 20,000 units of this so called “Flamethrower.”

Apparently, some customs agencies are saying they won’t allow shipment of anything called a “Flamethrower”. To solve this, we are renaming it “Not a Flamethrower”.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2018

Of course, the previously-dubbed Boring Company Flamethrower falls vastly short of this at a range of well below 10 feet in accordance with Californian law. This has led many to consider the item a novelty propane torch under the guise of a flamethrower instead.

Regardless, to get the item into the hands of those that purchased into it, Musk had to change the name. First on his suggestions was simply and subtly renaming it “Not a Flamethrower,” shortly followed by the more technical “Temperature Enhancement Device.”

Customs problem solved! pic.twitter.com/6D0Fbm8NFI

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2018

Rather than running with the confusion of someone genuinely using it to increase theirs or anyone elses temperature, Musk opted for the first one, releasing an updated image to the official website. An added bit of cheekiness is the final comment below, that reads “Flamethrower Sales Are Now Complete.”

Customs officials have yet to protest the name change, but only time will tell whether this change will be acceptable or not.

KitGuru Says: I rather like the tongue in cheek name change of “Not a Flamethrower” just to see if it can breach past customs unlike before. Besides, I’d say it’s difficult to argue that it’s anything related to a flamethrower aside from its shape. Do you think customs officials were right to call Musk up on how Boring Company not a Flamethrower?

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