Elon Musk's Tesla Surfboards Are Selling on eBay for $5,000
Tired of waiting for your Tesla Model 3 to be delivered? Try using the newest Elon Musk creation to get around — if you can find one.
Tesla released and promptly sold out of limited-edition branded surfboards online Sunday, according to Tech Crunch. All 200 of the $1,500 boards were gone within hours, leaving the California company $300,000 richer, scores of fans disappointed they missed out, and a few enterprising resellers taking advantage of the rush.
Just like Tesla's famous famous electric cars, the red-and-black surfboards are seriously sleek. The Tesla site says they feature "a mix of the same high-quality matte and gloss finishes used on all our cars," along with a deck "reinforced with light-weight 'Black Dart' carbon fiber" and "tonal logos in subtle contrast gloss." Designed by the Tesla Design Studio, Lost Surfboards and surfboard shaper Matt Biolos, the 6-foot-8 boards are made-to-order and easily fit into Tesla vehicles.
But customers shouldn't plan on hitting the beach anytime soon: The fine print says fins aren't included, and delivery could take as long as 10 weeks.
That hasn't stopped buyers from putting their boards for sale on eBay.
As of Monday morning, there were 10 Tesla surfboard listings on the e-commerce site. The cheapest was $2,850 plus shipping; the most expensive was $4,999.99. At least one came with a screenshot of an order confirmation email from Tesla.
The surfboard is just the latest popular product from Tesla and its CEO.
In 2016, customers pre-ordered over 400,000 Tesla Model 3 cars at $35,000 each (initially overjoyed, the company has spent the past two years struggling to meet that demand).
To fund a separate project that would connect major cities by tunnels, Musk sold 50,000 $20 hats for the Boring Company in December 2017.
This past February, he announced that he'd raised another $10 million by selling 20,000 flamethrowers at $500 apiece ("When the zombie apocalypse happens, you'll be glad you bought a flamethrower," he advertised on Twitter. "Works against hordes of the undead or your money back!").
Musk himself is worth an estimated $20 billion, but Tesla is losing cash fast: Last week, it requested refunds from some of its suppliers, stoking speculation about the company's future, according to the Wall Street Journal. CNBC reported Monday that UBS predicted shares will fall by over 30 percent in the next year.
Musk, meanwhile, has been stirring up controversy on Twitter, where he recently railed against the media and accused a rescuer who helped save a group of young boys from a cave in Thailand of being a pedophile. He did not tweet Sunday about the surfboards, instead writing cryptic messages like "Nothing is both real & imaginary."