- Twitter user Jeromy Sonne said The Boring Company struck a deal with him over a website domain.
- Sonne said he bought burnthair.com minutes after Elon Musk announced "Burnt Hair" perfume for sale.
It's not every day that Elon Musk or one of his companies cuts a deal with a Twitter user. But, when Musk announced The Boring Company planned to sell "Burnt Hair" cologne, Jeromy Sonne said he saw an opportunity.
Sonne, founder of Daypart.AI, told Insider that within minutes of Musk's tweet he bought the domain for burnthair.com and tweeted at the billionaire.
"I said, 'Hey, I just bought burnthair.com. I live in Austin and if you have lunch with me at the gigafactory or coffee or something like that, I'll give you the domain,'" Sonne said, regarding the tweet, which has since been deleted.
Sonne said that while Musk didn't respond, The Boring Company sent him a direct message within minutes of his tweet, telling him to send them an email about the idea. Insider viewed a screenshot of the Twitter DM.
"They said lunch wouldn't happen so I tried some even more outlandish asks," Sonne said. "I wasn't really expecting anything out of it, I was just having fun. I asked for a call with him instead. I asked for a ride on his private plane at one point. I was just kind of throwing it all out there and seeing what they'd be willing to go for," he added, regarding his email exchanges with a worker from The Boring Company.
They finally agreed that Sonne would receive a tour of the tunnel-building company's facility in Bastrop, Texas and some Boring Co swag, including one of the first 10 bottles of Burnt Hair cologne, in exchange for the website domain, Sonne told Insider. He transferred ownership of the domain in December, according to screenshots of the process that were viewed by Insider. Now, the website domain redirects to The Boring Company's main website.
"There was some radio silence for a while and I was kind of worried there for a minute," Sonne said, regarding the months after he transferred ownership of the website. "I had to follow up a couple of times, but then they made it happen."
Last week, Sonne shared a picture from the tour on Twitter. He told Insider the picture was taken outside of the company's facility by a worker. He said his family – his wife and four-year-old son — had been told they were not allowed to take out their phones while touring the facility due to concerns about security and were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, that prevented them from talking about what they saw inside.
—Jeromy Sonne (@JeromySonne) July 15, 2023
A spokesperson for The Boring Company did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.
Sonne said he was taken aback by the amount of construction related to Musk's companies in the small town. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that the billionaire is in the process of building a company town for SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company employees in Bastrop.
Though, Sonne said the tour had the biggest impression on his son.
"My four year old is on the spectrum and is like really obsessed with construction and that's a special interest for him, construction, diggers, that sort of thing," Sonne said. "Since we've gotten home, he has been building tunnels with Magna-Tiles and running his cars through them and stuff. Honestly, that was worth the entire adventure, just seeing him get really hyped up about it."