What we know about Elon Musk’s $100 ‘Burnt Hair’ perfume

Fragrance is described as ‘the essence of repugnant desire’

Elon Musk has claimed to have sold 20,000 bottles of his $100 perfume after launching the bizarre “Burnt Hair” scent.

The concept for a perfume allegedly inspired by the smell of burnt hair appeared to come to the Tesla CEO and world’s richest man in September, when he first tweeted: “‘Burnt Hair’ - Scent for Men by Singed.”

At the time, Musk claimed that the perfume was “coming soon” from his company The Boring Company, which he noted are “the same people that sold you a flamethrower,” a reference to the $500 devices sold by the company in 2018.

On 9 October, Musk again took to Twitter to promote the scent, with the entrepreneur sharing a promotional photo of a red glass perfume bottle emblazoned with Burnt Hair in a silver script.

“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable - why did I even fight it for so long?!” the SpaceX founder jokingly tweeted on Tuesday, before declaring the perfume the “finest fragrance on Earth” in a follow-up tweet.

While the perfume may have started as a joke, Musk appears to have taken his latest product launch seriously, with the 51 year old updating his Twitter bio to read: “Perfume Salesman.”

The fragrance is available for purchase on The Boring Company website, where it is described as “the essence of repugnant desire”. According to the website, the perfume will ship in “Q1 2023”.

“Just like leaning over a candle at the dinner table, but without all the hard work,” one unattributed quote on the website reads, while another says: “Stand out in a crowd! Get noticed as you walk through the airport.”

On Wednesday, Musk, who is worth $219bn, claimed that 10,000 bottles of Burnt Hair had been sold in a tweet that has been liked more than 41,000 times.

In another tweet, he said the number had reached 20,000. If the claim is true, it means the business mogul has made more than $2m in sales of the fragrance, with Musk appearing to poke fun at the alleged popularity of the product in a follow-up tweet Wednesday, in which he said: “Can’t wait for media stories tomorrow about $1m of Burnt Hair sold.”

If Musk has indeed sold 20,000 bottles of the fragrance, it wouldn’t be the first time that he has released a questionable product to great success. In 2018, just hours after announcing the existence of his flamethrowers, Musk earned more than $3.5m in sales from the devices.

The billionaire entrepreneur also made a profit off what began as an April Fool’s Joke in 2020, when he started selling $250 Tesla tequila on the car manufacturer’s website. The spirit, which was actually produced by California firm Nosotros Tequila and typically sold for less than $50, sold out within hours.

As for the reactions to Musk’s latest endeavour, reactions were mixed, with some praising the business mogul as a “genius,” while others revealed they were weary of his jokes.

“Ok so…I may or may not have just bought Elon Musk’s ‘Burnt Hair’ perfume for $100,” one person tweeted.

“All this dude does is troll us,” another person tweeted, while someone else wrote: “Sad thing is… he thinks he’s funny when he is just so incredibly lame.”

The Independent has contacted The Boring Company for comment.