Only days after he was photographed alongside bestie Kanye West donning Yeezys, and voicing support for Kanye 2020, Elon Musk has released a limited-edition pair of Tesla-branded red satin short-shorts to celebrate the company’s stock climbing.
Before you let that soak in, there’s more: Musk – who recently changed his Twitter bio to “budgie smuggler” – priced the shorts at $69.420, presumably to remind everyone that he’s a cool dad who dabbles in cool stuff like smoking weed. On June 28, he tweeted, “69 days after 4/20 again haha.”
The shorts are apparently a direct jibe at short sellers of Tesla stock – people who borrow and then sell stock, before buying it back for less money. Musk said that he’d “send some to the Shortseller Enrichment Commission to comfort them through these difficult times”.
The shorts have “S3XY” on the back, a reference to Tesla’s Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y vehicles. Its description on the site reads: “Celebrate summer with Tesla Short Shorts. Run like the wind or entertain like Liberace with our red satin and gold trim design. Relax poolside or lounge indoors year-round with our limited-edition Tesla Short Shorts, featuring our signature Tesla logo in front with ‘S3XY’ across the back. Enjoy exceptional comfort from the closing bell.”
Three minutes after Musk tweeted the link to the shorts, he tweeted, “Dang, we broke the website.” Reports confirmed that Tesla's online store was briefly inaccessible.
Strangely, this isn’t the first time Musk has brought up short-shorts. Back in 2018, he voiced his disdain for short sellers, tweeting that “what they do should be illegal”. Later, he sent David Einhorn, a billionaire known for selling shorts, a box of short-shorts in response to Einhorn slagging off Tesla.