Lifestyle
Elon Musk sold $2M in The Boring Company Flamethrowers in 24 hours
Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, The Boring Company, has officially unveiled its flamethrower. Costing $500, the fiery, undoubtedly cool device is now available for pre-order.
The Boring Co. flamethrower seemingly started off as a joke back in December, when Elon Musk announced on Twitter that if he sells 50,000 Boring Company hats, he would start selling a flamethrower. The idea seemed so silly then that many members of the online community dismissed Musk’s statement as a joke. In true Elon Musk fashion, however, the fiery device actually turned out to be real.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BeeYW0NA1HU/
Signs that The Boring Co. flamethrower was a real thing emerged earlier this month when musician D.A. Wallach demonstrated the fiery contraption on his Instagram page. Wallach’s post, which was taken at a Boring Co. tunneling site, featured the musician playing around with the flamethrower. Even then, however, speculations were still high that the device on Wallach’s hands was probably a one-off piece.
As it turns out, there will be 20,000 more. The device is priced at a pretty reasonable $500 a piece, though The Boring Co. also sells an admittedly overpriced fire extinguisher for an additional $30.
The flamethrower is yet another nod to Spaceballs, a movie that Musk is a huge fan of. In the movie, Yogurt, the film’s parody of Star Wars’ Yoda, shows off a number of Spaceballs-themed items, among them a flamethrower. Poking fun at the fact that movie merchandise is usually targeted towards the younger demographic, Yogurt proudly claimed that kids “love” the Spaceballs flamethrower.
With Elon Musk being Elon Musk, however, he could not resist mentioning the zombie apocalypse in his recent tweets, with the SpaceX and Tesla CEO pitching the device as a great way to handle the upcoming zombie outbreak. Musk assured the Twitterverse, however, that he would not, in any way, cause the zombie apocalypse as a means to sell more Boring Co. flamethrowers. Musk did mention, however, that after the flamethrowers are sold out, The Boring Company Freezegun would be next. No dates about the release of the Freezegun have been provided.
During the course of Musk’s Twitter session this weekend, the serial entrepreneur confirmed that 4,000 Boring Co. flamethrowers have already been sold. This means that in less than 24 hours, Elon Musk had managed to raise $2 million from selling flamethrowers online. Considering Musk’s previous statements about building the Boring Company one hat at a time, it seems like the flamethrowers are proving to be a great way to augment the tunneling startup’s funds even more.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BeeUSFwgLrM/
Before everyone panics about the dangers of Elon Musk’s flamethrowers, however, it is pertinent to note that The Boring Company flamethrower is not really a full-fledged flamethrower. During his Twitter updates, Musk stated that the device would only shoot flames over short distances, minimizing danger while maximizing the device’s fun factor.
Based on the videos of the device, it seems like the Boring Co. flamethrower is simply a propane torch fitted on what seems to be a modified CSI S.T.A.R. XR-5 Airsoft Rifle. Thus, in a lot of ways, Elon Musk’s flamethrower is really more similar to weed-killing torches like the Weed Dragon, which could be bought at hardware stores, than an actual flamethrower, such as the XM42-M, which can shoot flames up to 30 feet.
Considering the pace at which The Boring Company flamethrowers are selling, it might not be too long before the Boring Co. Freezegun becomes a reality.
Good thing you didn’t ask about the Freezegun …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2018
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
Lifestyle
Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
