Full Bio Luke Fortney is a data journalism and an Investopedia contributing writer. He also contributes to WNYC/PRI's daily show, The Takeaway. Learn about our Selling Recreational Flamethrowers Elon Musk hasn’t been able to keep some of the promises he's made in the past, but when it comes to his Boring Company’s pledge to bring a recreational flamethrower to the market, the Tesla CEO appeared to deliver. On December 10, 2017, Musk vowed to make a Boring Company flamethrower if the company could sell 50,000 branded hats for $20 each and barely two days later, over half of the goal had been reached. By Christmas Eve, he announced on X that the goal had been met. Shortly after the release, Musk tweeted: "Apparently, some customs agencies are saying they won’t allow shipment of anything called a 'Flamethrower'. To solve this, we are renaming it 'Not a Flamethrower'." Flamethrower or not, The Boring Company sold 20,000 units for $500 each on limited release, earning the company unprecedented media exposure and a potential $10 million in revenues. Latest Innovations In April 2021, The Boring Company completed the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop—a 1.7-mile, two-tunnel system with three stops: the LVCC Central Station, the LVCC West Station, and the LVCC South Station. The LVCC Loop was designed to reduce traveling time and traffic congestion. Fast Fact The LVCC Loop reduced travel time between the Convention Center campuses from 45 minutes to two minutes. The company also completed the 0.8-mile Hyperloop Test Track and 1.14-mile R&D Tunnel in Hawthorne, California, in 2016 and 2018, respectively. The Hyperloop Test Track is a hyperspeed public transportation tunnel system in which passengers travel in autonomous electric pods. Not yet open to the public, the Test Track is used for competitions where participants design and build electric pods to travel Hyperloops. The R&D Tunnel was built to test the company's tunnel infrastructure and Loop and Hyperloop systems. Under construction is the Vegas Loop, a 29-mile tunnel that will connect to the LVCC and 50 other stations along the Vegas strip, in downtown Las Vegas, the Las Vegas airport, and other locations. Also, the plan is to connect the Loop to stations in Los Angeles. The Elon Musk Factor Elon Musk is the richest person in the world with a net worth of $256 billion as of September 2024. Musk is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Tesla, SpaceX, X Corp., and The Boring Company. He is also one of the founders of PayPal and other tech companies. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and Bernard Arsenault round out the top five richest people in the world. The Early Years Born in South Africa to an engineer father and a fashion model mother, Musk was always fascinated with entrepreneurship and innovations. At the age of 10, he began to program computers and became so skilled that, at 12, he created and sold his first galactical computer game, Blastar. At 17, Elon moved to Canada with his mother and attended Queen's University, where he spent two years before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania. He finished his academic career in Pennsylvania, graduating with bachelor's degrees in Physics and in Economics. Founder and CEO Elon Musk's entrepreneurial passion and academic background led him to begin Zip2 with his brother, Kimbal, and partner, Greg Kouri, in 1995. However, in 1999, Compaq purchased the software company for $340 million. With his sudden windfall, Musk formed X.com, which later became PayPal. Before Musk left the company, e-commerce platform eBay purchased PayPal for a whopping $1.5 billion. $256 billion