Play With Elon Musk's Fire, Get Burned
Whether it's a decade in a Sardinian jail or whatever the Chinese do to people whose cars explode in parking garages.
Jon Shazar
In the end, Elon Musk chose not to defy the authorities: There would be no Teslaquila. In its place would sit, much delayed, outrageously priced and wildly oversold all the same, the much-less mellifluously monikered Tesla Tequila. This titular flexibility means that no one's premium electric car-branded liquor would be seized and dumped by Mexican appellation authorities or, I dunno, some other consequence of violating international product naming laws.
In a similarly legalistic vein, the second-richest man on earth sold 20,000 flamethrowers cheekily dubbed "Not a Flamethrower." Alas, even the Italian authorities were not fooled by this gambit, much to the dismay of his customers.
[Max] Craddock had been arrested in the Sardinian port city of Olbia in June 2018 after trying to board a private party bus with a collectible flamethrower from Elon Musk's latest startup, The Boring Company…. When Craddock managed to get a lawyer, she told him the judge would probably just let him go with a warning. Instead, the magistrate ordered him back to his cell. That was when Craddock, pictured below, learned possession of a flamethrower in Italy can carry a 10-year prison sentence….
A few months later, author John Richardson was sitting down to work at his home in London when there was a loud knock at the door. He opened it and five police officers barged in wearing tasers and tactical gear…. "I was like, 'what's going on here?' " Richardson recalled. "Then something clicked and I said, 'Is this about the flamethrower?' "….
More than 1,000 flamethrower purchasers abroad have had their devices confiscated by customs officers or local police, with many facing fines and weapons charges. In the U.S., the flamethrowers have been implicated in at least one local and one federal criminal investigation. There have also been at least three occasions in which the Boring Company devices have been featured in weapons hauls seized from suspected drug dealers.
Of course, another Musk customer has another reason to be quite peeved at the billionaire right now, for at least a flamethrower—whatever its legal status—is, you know, supposed to burst into flames.
A Tesla Model 3 exploded in an underground residential parking garage in Shanghai on Tuesday, Chinese media reported.
No people were injured in the fire, Tesla said in a statement to Chinese media. Preliminary analysis indicates the accident was caused by an impact to the underside of the car, the automaker added in the reports.
Suffice it to say, when anything made by one of Musk's companies catches fire, whether it's supposed to or not, it's pretty bad news.
Elon Musk said it was 'Not a Flamethrower' [TechCrunch]
Tesla Model 3 reportedly explodes in Shanghai parking garage [CNBC]
Elon Musk Falls To Second Richest Person In The World After His Fortune Drops Nearly $14 Billion In One Day [Forbes]
Exploding CarslawMax CraddockJohn RichardsonIneffective Naming ConventionscrimeElon MuskTesla Model 3The Boring CompanyTesla MotorsFlamethrowers
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