Elon Musk sells all 50,000 plain black baseball caps showing the logo of his tunnelling firm, the Boring Company

The inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk has proved that he can do more than just build futuristic cars and launch space programmes, having sold out an entire line of 50,000 hats in just over a month.

The latest milestone for the businessman behind Tesla, SpaceX and a host of other tech companies came when Musk announced that every one of his “Boring” baseball caps had been snapped up.

The plain black $20 caps, emblazoned with the simple white logo of Musk’s tunnelling firm, the Boring Company, will have raised $1m for the venture.

Musk, who had earlier, presumably in jest, promised to start selling company-branded flamethrowers once 50,000 hats were purchased, tweeted: “Hats sold out, flamethrowers soon!”

Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Hats sold out, flamethrowers soon!

Showing how far a concept could be iterated, Musk regularly announced new tweaks to the offering, including a free gift with every 5,000th hat sold: another hat, “signed by the delivery guy”, according to Musk.

The not-very-limited edition hat, however jokingly marketed, has been a fundraiser for Musk’s Boring Company, which is promising to revolutionise transport by building tunnels far more efficiently and cheaply than at present. Musk suggests much narrower tunnels could be built, for a tenth of current standard costs, supporting a network of vehicles on electric skates.

The company is planning to construct a tunnel parallel to Los Angeles’s congested I-405 – conveniently also speeding Elon Musk’s personal commute from his home in Bel Air to Hawthorne, California.

The hats maintain their presence on the homepage of the Boring Company, although now the would-be buyer is simply told that sales are complete, alongside the sign-off of Edith Piaf singing Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.

Disappointed purchasers can find other Musk-approved headwear. SpaceX, Musk’s spaceflight company, sells nine different caps in a variety of colours with prints ranging from the X logo to a slogan reading “Occupy Mars”, while Tesla Motors sells six caps and one “liquid metal visor” for prices as high as $30.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Boring Company’s boring machine. Photograph: Instagram

Other firms have become almost as well-known for their apparel businesses as their actual products. Ferrari generates almost $500m a year in sales not directly related to its car business (although that figure does include sponsorship revenue related to its racing team).

While those companies also make and sell actual products, with Ferrari and Tesla’s cars and SpaceX’s rockets bringing in significant revenue, the Boring Company remains firmly in the R&D phase. One tunnelling machine is slowly linking SpaceX and Tesla’s headquarters in Hawthorne with Hawthorne Boulevard, two miles to the west.

One respondent on Twitter suggested that, such is the level of fandom Musk and his firms inspire, “the Boring Company could sell the dirt they are tunnelling through and people would buy it”.



Musk replied: “We will! At least, whatever is left over after we build the obelisks.”