Elon Musk has a new title: “perfume salesman.”
On Tuesday, Musk’s Boring Company introduced a scent called “Burnt Hair,” describing it as “The Essence of Repugnant Desire.” It can be yours for $100 — which includes domestic shipping and taxes.
A product page promotes the fragrance as “just like leaning over a candle at the dinner table, but without all the hard work.”
Naturally, Musk announced the gimmicky product launch on Twitter, the platform he’s set to purchase for $44 billion after a months-long, litigious, see-saw saga.
His closing of the Twitter transaction still isn’t guaranteed — it depends on his ability to finance it. Like a high school sports team raising money via cookie sales, Musk is presenting Burnt Hair as a way for supporters to help bankroll his Twitter buyout. “Please buy my perfume, so I can buy Twitter,” he tweeted on Wednesday.
As Bloomberg explains, this isn’t Musk’s first oddball product launch:
The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer has a history of launching products based on jokes that his massive fanbase has sought after as collectibles. A limited line of 20,000 flamethrowers sold by Boring Co. in 2018 to raise $10 million for its tunnel-building tests attracted huge interest.
In 2020, Tesla sold limited-edition, satin “short shorts” — for $69.420 each — as a means of taunting those who unsuccessfully shorted Tesla stock.
Going all-in on his new promotion, Musk changed his Twitter profile to “perfume salesman,” and noted that his diversification into the fragrance sector was predestined by his surname:
After enthusing that 10,000 bottles had been sold on the first day, Twitter was back on Wednesday evening to announce that sales crossed the 20,000-bottle mark — thus raking in $2 million in a little over 24 hours.
Musk cheerfully noted that shoppers can buy the product with Doge coin and, in step with the times, he indicated Burnt Hair isn’t just for men or for women.
Musk isn’t the only one having some laughs over the product launch: