Elon Musk said it was 'wrong' and 'dangerous' for people to buy the flamethrowers that he made and put on sale

iJustine/YouTube/Joe Rogan Experience

A composite image showing YouTuber iJustine with her flamethrower and Elon Musk on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast.

• Elon Musk's The Boring Company sold out of 20,000 limited-edition flamethrowers in just four days earlier this year.
• On the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast on Thursday, Musk said the product is "dangerous" and "wrong," but that people didn't care.
• "Don't buy it, that's what I said. But still, people bought it. There was nothing I could do to stop them," Musk joked.

Elon Musk has said flamethrowers sold by his The Boring Company were "a terrible idea," and that he tried to tell people not to buy them before selling 20,000 machines in just four days.

On the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast on Thursday, Musk was asked by host Joe Rogan if he ever considered the idea that selling the flamethrowers would be dangerous, or make the company liable for any incidents.

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Musk replied: "Yeah it's a terrible idea. You 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 was nothing I could do to stop them, I could not stop them. I said don't buy it, it's a bad idea.

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

You can watch the interview below. Musk talks about the flamethrowers at 1.22 in the clip:

Musk did tell people not to buy the devices in January, but he also hosted a pick-up party for the first 1,000 customers when they went on sale in June 2018. At the time, he tweeted enthusiastically about the machines, generating more publicity for them.

The devices were sold by The Boring Company, a tunnel construction company working on high-speed transport systems.

The company is known for its limited-edition merchandise, such as the hats that it sold in 2017, and typically does not sell more than one product at a time.

"We did 50,000 hats and that was a million dollars. And we said OK, we'll sell something for 10 million. And that was 20,000 flamethrowers at $500 dollars. They went fast," Musk told Rogan.

He said that he was inspired to sell the flamethrowers after watching 1987 film "Spaceballs."

"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.' It was like we should do a flamethrower."

The Boring Company

The flamethrowers sold by The Boring Company.

The machines are officially called Not-a-Flamethrower, owing to shipping and customs regulations that restrict the transport of anything termed a flamethrower.

"To be totally frank, it's actually just a roofing torch with an air rifle cover. It's not a real flamethrower," Musk told Rogan."We were very clear. This is not actually a flamethrower."

Despite this, Musk often refers to the machines as flamethrowers himself, on Twitter and in interviews.