Elon Musk says he has sold out of flamethrowers. The Tesla boss, who appears to be conducting his business as if storyboarding a new superhero film, only one that is based on that episode of The Apprentice where they have to sell as many sandwiches as possible and hope that people really enjoy soggy prawn’n’mayo baps, has shifted all 20,000 available units of his new product, a $500 flamethrower. Like the $20 baseball caps, which also sold out, they are branded with the name of Musk’s tunnelling venture, the Boring Company.

Five days ago, Musk announced this flash sale from hell by posting an Instagram video of himself pretending to go for the cameraman with one of these hefty fire machines, which does make one wonder why one of the richest men in the world is acting like his life’s ambition is to be the kind of YouTuber who eats record-breaking chilli peppers, then attempts a “social experiment” to prove a point about sexism being totally bad. “Don’t do this,” he captioned it. “Also, I want to be clear that a flamethrower is a super terrible idea. Definitely don’t buy one. Unless you like fun.” Huh huh huh! Why be unscorched when you can be Boring?

Either Musk is throwing caution to the wind and committing an act of mass nihilism by giving anyone with a credit card the ability to burn his fellow man from a safe distance or it’s all a stunt, a grand gesture of bants, because Musk has given up on all those potentially humanity-improving initiatives such as electric cars, living in space and travelling between major cities in a whizzy metal tube, in order to fulfil orders for the world’s man cave. If it is one big joke, then it’s perfect for the Trump age. It’s confusing, fulfils no clear purpose other than destruction in the name of ego and also, if you don’t get it, well, the joke is on you.