(Reuters) – The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has scented a new opportunity to capitalise on quirky products, launching a perfume called “Burnt Hair” that he said sold 10,000 bottles to earn a million dollars in just a few hours.
“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long!?” Musk asked on Twitter, where he now describes himself as a perfume salesman.
“The essence of repugnant desire” is the website description of his latest offering, which costs $100 a bottle and is set to start shipping in the first quarter of 2023, making good on a product Musk first touted in September.
Previous brainwaves have included Tesla’s own-brand tequila, launched in 2020, and a pair of “short shorts” to signify Musk’s victory over investors who bet against the electric vehicle maker, now the world’s most valuable car firm.
His Boring Company, a tunnelling firm last valued at $5.7 billion, sold flamethrowers at $500 apiece in early 2018, raising $10 million. He also sold 50,000 Boring Company hats.
Musk’s ambitions over the years have ranged from colonising Mars to creating a new sustainable energy economy, and in the process he has built Tesla, rocket company SpaceX, and smaller firms.
Last week the billionaire proposed to proceed with his original $44-billion bid to take Twitter Inc private, calling for an end to a lawsuit by the social media company that could have forced him to pay up, whether he wanted to or not.
If successful, a deal would put Musk in charge of one of the most influential media platforms and end months of litigation that damaged Twitter’s brand and fed his reputation for erratic behavior.
The Boring Company did not respond to a query on how long it planned to keep the perfume listed.
(Reporting by Akriti Sharma and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
